bajwa@nacho.DEC (BAJ DTN 381-2851) (12/20/85)
Here is an interesting article by Kothari that I received from a friend: In an article titled THE GREAT DIVIDE by a known political scientist Dr. Rajni Kothari, founder of ~~Lokayan as well as the President of the People Union for Civil Liberties(PUCL). The article noted the changes that Indian polity has undergone, role of the electoral politics and the use of communalism and casteism in manipulating the voters. It warns of a possible emergence of fascism in India because of deterioriation and subversion of democratic institutions in India, especially Indian polity entering into a new era of "end of the ideology" under Rajiv Gandhi. It also criticized India's developmental path because it has been pauperizing the poor and depriving tribal and underprevileged people of traditional means oflivelihood, and causing considerable ecological harm. I thought some of you may be interested in it. --------------------------------------------------- (SUBHEADINGS HAVE BEEN INTRODUCED TO IMPROVE THE READABILITY.) THE GREAT DIVIDE RAJNI KOTHARI New Kind of Communalism "Like many other phenomena on the Indian scene, communalism needs to be reexamined. For, we are witnesses to a new version of communalism, a new phase may be, but it is more than just a phase. It is comunalism that does not even wear the same face any more. "Crucial to understanding this new face ofcommunalism are two aspects. First, it is not an aberration but something that is part of the system. Second, this is not so in any passive way, where the system has fallen prey to forces beyond its control. Rather, it is a direct outcome of its inherent logic, and one in which its key actors play a role. India's Development Path "... on the economic front, it has now become fairly clear that by the late sixties, a sizable infrastructure (backed by the green revolution) had been created which was sufficient to look after the consumer needs and lifestyles of the upper classes. Thereafter, as the pressure for re-distributive policies grew, the belief in a positive state which had earlier produced the infrastructure was gradually given up, and with the policy of liberalisation on the one hand, and the rising power of local coalitions between businessmen, administrators, contractors, and politicians on the other, the development process was directed in such a manner that kept large sections of the people out of it. This did not contribute to a kind of prosperity in national GNP terms, a kind of prosperity that is associated with the building of a hard, strong state whcih indeed was the driving ideology of the elite. Such a development strategy necessarily led to massive ecological erosions and undermined the great physical and natural dievrsity that had characterized the traditional economy. This in turn eroded the diversities and autonomies of a social and cultural kind. "For, with the sharpening of conflict between the dominant classes eager to retain and indeed enhance their living standards and the poor and dispossessed eager to find their place udner the sun, the sense of complementarity and coexistence of diverse communities gave place to confrontations at the social level also. Phase of Populist Slogans "Now, this process was greatly fuelled by aparticular episode in dealing with the problem of poverty. Indira Gandhi's primary challenge to the older leadership of her party was articulated around her charges that the problem of poverty had been ignored. This created an instant echo in the hearts of the poor and proved to be the smartest stroke that the ruling classes could have conceived; it consolidated her personal and the party's hold on the masses for a long time. As it was not followed up, not meant to be followed up, by any genuine structural or institutional revamping, what one got was a radicalization of aspirations and a lot of rhetoric without any commensuate changes in the economic structure. So that what looked like a promise turned out to be deceit. Since then we have been living in a politics of continuous illusions as well as deceit, no party being free from it. As this has fashioned party politics and the whole process of communicating with the people, two consequences have followed. "One was conception of poltiics essentially as an electoral game. And the other was conception of cutting through intermediary organziations and institutions of the state, appealing directly to the massses, in the process cutting out all those who sought to mediate between the state and civil society. This was done in the name of the most affectd masses and in the name of progress and the end of poverty. Undercutting Institutions "One of this emerged after 1969, the much talked about electoral coalition of the Congress, the coalition of Muslims, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, some depressed castes, and the Brahmins to which was added some regional equations in the South. Equally well-known was the nature of charisma that was used basically by both undermining institutions and undercutting leaders which happened to have a mass base of their own. "Since then many developments took place which led to a gradual decline of the role of institutions, of infrastures, of popular discussion of the media and generally of the broad framework of participation and citizen involvement - and substitution of it all by the steamroller of winning elections. Sicne then politics has meant a constant struggle for survival, survival through the numbers game. "With this, the notion of party as an insrtument of mass transformation gave plce to one of party as a mechanical contrivance which keeps you in power. Once this happened, the notion of pluralism in democracy got perverted into communalism by emphasising the numerical power of majorities versus minorities. In a sense those who say that communalism is a direct child of secular politics are right. It is secular politics reduced of all normative content (which is how often secularism is often conceived). Electoral Politics: Numbers Game "Elections have become ends in themselves, instruments of the status quo and of self-perpetuation rather than change. This has happened in other countries also. In a number of third world countries, elections do take place but they take place essentially for perpetuating whosoever happens to be in power (often a religious or linguistic community or a tribe). In a sense this has happened in the West also, above all in the US and UK. In all these countries, elections have become a legitimising process for highly authoritarian politics. And in all of them, what you are really getting, without always noticing it, is the substitution of a political process based on competition of programmes and policies,and a debate on those policies by a mere numbers game. This is clearly what has taken place in India over the last 10 years or so. "Now, the communal implications of the numbers game in our kind of a plural society were not immediately apparent. One still thought of numbers in terms of caste, regions and so forth. And yet, if you examine carefully, the numbers game does seem to have given rise to an ethnic calculus and ultimately to communal politics... Numbers Game Leads to Communalism "Such an ethnic orientation of the numbers game has two prominent features. One is the rise of new political organizations that are sometimes blatantly and sometimes not so blatantly communal. This happens at the local level or starts at the level and then moves up. Shiv Sena is an excellent example of this but there are many other examples too. Secondly, there takes place a capture of specifically political organizations like parties by cultural and sectarian organizations. What started as a non-political organization takes on a political role. RSS is an excellent example of this. So is the Jamaat-e-Islam. Such organizations declare that they have nothing to do with politics, but they go on spreading their tentacles. So that in course of time, political organizations like parties and trade unions and professional associations like those of students and teachers become increasingly dependent upon on sectarian and communal organizations which are not supposed to be political. "Now this kind of ethnic-based, communal organization-based poltiics has had far-reaching consequences. For it begins to affect hitherto unaffected areas, e.g., the working class, the students, the youth generally. We know from the reports of Bombay-Bhiwandi, Ahmedabad and other riots that a lot of participants in these riots tend to be rather young people who have had no experience of partition or of the kind of prejudicies or hurt feelings that their parents had nursed. It is participation that is largely apolitical. And it spreads in both time and space. These riots go on for weeks, sometimes months, they recur after having stopped and they stop only to regroup and strat again. They begin to permeate the rural areas which was not the case earlier. They affect the media (like the press in Gujarat during anti-reservation riots) and the larger climate of opinion. They affect the law and order establishment, the police and paramilitary forces. And the next thing you hear is that the Shiv Sena has captured power in Bombay city and the anti-reservationists have had a field day observing strike in Gujarat with Madhavsinh Solanki giving in on every count. "So this is one major change that has taken place as a result of reducing democratic politics to electoral politics. To which, of course, the growing sense of insecurity and uncertainty among politicians makes a very great contribution. I think the next change comes when we move from indirect and masked use of communalism and communal appeals in politics to a more open and self-conscious calculation on communal lines. This is more recent, of course, but it follows the same logic of numbers. I think, this is the most dangerous phase that we have entered. It happened in Assam to begin with and then though in an opposite direction, in Kashmir and Punjab and Delhi and after the assassination, all over the country... "What is happening at present in certain areas is that a particular dominant caste or even a linguistic group, faced by challenge from the lower classes, takes on a chavinist character. This is found in states like Maharashtra where the chauvinism of a dominant caste like the Marathas becomes an important factor in the growth of communalism. Maratha politics which was for so long, despite the long domination of the Congress party (in a way because of that), permeated by factionalism of all kinds, has of late entered a phase of closing ranks against the non-Marathas and has taken on an anti-Dalit, anti-Muslim, anti-lower caste form. It is a short step from this to think of the Marathas as the guardians of the Hinduism. The same tendency is at work in Andhra Pradesh, UP, Harayana, and Gujarat. This is a very significant shift from a pattern of domination based on faction-based alliances between castes to one based on a more exclusive view of caste domination. With this, caste takes on a communal character. Move towards Fascism "There are four other points which are related to this change in the uses of diversity and plural identities. One is the de-ideologization of politics and the inreasing preoccupation with mere survival in office which in turn has led to an ethnicisation of politics in which the manipulation of numbers on a communal or religious basis. Seond, there is a clear backlash against people's movements and mass upsurges. Those in position of power have seen that a lot of mass unrest is growing, that organizations are being formed at grass-roots level, that action is being planned by them, that it often succeeds and even when it does not succeed, it still gives rise to a radical challenge from the bottom. Very often an attack against a party or a group in the name of national unity is essentially an attack meant to curb popular upsurge which are backing such parties or groups. The planned destabilization of the Akali Dal in Punjab, or the ouster of Farooq Abdullah government or of the Telugu Desam through sheer fraud and nothing else, were crude but striking examples of this, examples of parties that had come up as a result of fairly masssive popular upsurge. But I am not thinking of merely this kind of mass support behind a party or a leader. I am also thinking of the backlash against the people who would take up the cause of the poor, of the dalits, of the tribals, or of bonded labor, and try to organize them. A lot of this backlash in fact comes from commuanlly oriented parties, including the Congress party, in which the latter usually succeeds in undermining genuine mass organizations. "The third important development is the lumpenisation of politics at the lower levels. Sanjay Gandhi seems to have contributed the most to it since 1975 but it has been growing over a longer period. It consists in the displacement of the regular secular party organizations and the regular experienced politicians who had come up from the grass roots, so to say, from the village level to the state level by mafia kind of organizations based on dens of liquor, gambling, and drugs and manned usually by people with a criminal record, equipped with strong-arms and available at short notices to do a job, whether at the time of elections or for carrying out other tasks such as fixing an opponent or a minority community. "And fourth, we are witness to a new phase of capitalism, which is of course a result of the kind of development path that we have pursued, necessairly contracting in terms of limiting itself to a particular class, and therefore, necessairly both anti-people and anti-development. Ours is not one of those revolutionary bourgeoisie which in fact radicalizes the whole development process, expands the internal market, exploits the working classes but also incorporates them into the market and so on. It is primarily and almost exclusively middle-class based, and to that extent not just exploitative of but hostile to the masses. Another feature of the capitalist phase we are in now is that is externally oriented, both economically in terms of integration into a world market and politically in terms of integeration into a global strategic community that also entails a global technological community. Yet another and important feature of the kind of capitalism is that it has increasingly got rooted in corruption and generation of black money, the proceeds from smuggling and other major rackets including international ones and of course, the profits from a whole array of illegal operations in the informal sector of trade and traffic in formally prohibited items. With this also takes plae a greater and greater integration between this kind of bastard capitalism and the state. And as this happens, a repressive state apparatus becomes necessary for a ruthless capitalist exploitation for both of which there is need for still greater criminalization of the polity. "At a much broaders level such a capitalist ethos also works closely with two other large macro developments, militarization of the economy on the one hand and a robotization of the productive process on the other. In short, whether you look at the the new liberalization and tax reform policies, or at the gradual undermining of the role of the working class in the productive process (as well as a gradual reduction in the production of those goods which are meant to fulfil the basic needs of the lower classes), and the consequent process of pauperization, those are integral parts of the economic development profile of the stage of capitalism in which we are moving or have already moved. Such a prognosis is now even openly discussed by middle class professionals and business tycoons. If only we did not have the poor, if only we did not have to bother about this lower 40 to 60%, how fast we could have moved? We would become a strong and prosperous nation, one of the great powers. In other words, the whole doctrine of the dispensation of the poor, of triage, is emerging as an inherent feature of the capitalist ethos in which we find ourselves. "Now these four shifts in our larger environment may not look like being directly relevant to the political process, but in fact they are. For they are contributing to the kind of political culture that I am trying to unravel. One is the backlash agains tthe popular organizations, the other is the lumpen phenomenon and the rise of criminality and third is the new phase of capitalism, inherent in which is the pauperization, and all this in the general context of "the end of ideology." All of this is affecting the mass base of the polity. And, it is in this situation that conflicts take on a more and more communal and less and less economic character. The base may still be economic but the expression is communal.... State Becoming More Communal and Repressive "Let me now draw the import of these different dimensions of conflict for the basic theme of this article: how an elite, so embroiled in the politics of survival, deals with mass discontent and unrest. Instead of responding to popular discontent and demands, attempt is made to foist another set of issues by invoking sentiments and feelings that engender communal attitudes. It is in a situation of growing instability, erosion of institutions and a deepening crisis of leadership that communal politics finds fertile ground. "What is relatively though not wholly new about the present phase is that the ruling party and the state itself are playing a direct role in communalizing the political process. Recent developments in Bombay-Bhiwandi, in Punjab and in Delhi, Bokaro, Kanpur, and elsewhere following the assassination, - as earlier in Assam - have highlighted the role of the government and the ruling party in spreading terrorism, inciting and even engineering communal violence, permitting the growth of chaos and vandalism, and then making use of it all for arousing chauvinistic sentiments among large sections of the people. Terrorizing Opponents Accused as Anti-national "Paradoxically, this is happening in the name of achieving national unity and national integration. Each time a divide and rule policy is used vis-a-vis another community or region, it is done in the name of the national unity. This is an altogether a new genre of politics- of frightening and intimidating and unnerving the middle class, of delegitimizing dissent, of terorizing the mainstream public opinion and of muzzling the press, the judiciary and the intelligencia. We are always told that the Akalis and Farooq Abdullah and all those who take up the cause of the Sikhs or the Muslims - or of Assam or of North-East- are dividing the country. Anybody who supports any of these, or for that matter dissident intellectuals and organizations as such, are out to divide the country. Many of them are accused of being associated with foreign powers, one is never told on what basis, and that make them ipso facto people who are out to divide the country, unpatriotic as they are out to sell the country. What we need (we are told) is a united country and the only party that can ensure that is the ruling party... Outcome of Electoral Politics Devoid of Democratic Politics "What I have tried to do in this article is to show how electoral compulsions and the growing preoccupation with survival in office, are responsible for a gradual shift from an open democratic political process committed to social change to a techno-bureaucratic-military order committed to the status quo and against any challenges from the bottom, and how this has undermined the pluralism of the kind we used to cherish and without which, I think, unity is not possible in this hightly diverse country. With this shift has also gone the concept of a positive and purposive state in economic and social transformation, the relative autonomy of the state in this transforamtion and the role of the state in fashioning a just social order. Instead, what you are getting is a state in which on the one hand oppression is on the increase, and on the other hand, key issues of public policy are being increasingly taken out of the political arena, and treated as essentially technical. Whither India? "The key question, really is, where will the technological and apolitical model of the state take us? Will it reinforce the processes I talked of earlier, namely, the dispensability of the poor, asking them to stew in their own juices, and immunising the rich from them? Allow more deaths and disease to take place and feel less and less concerned with droughts and natural disasters, themselves a result of aggressive capitalist policies? The second question is, if it is a technological model of the state, how will it manage the masses? Through mass political organizations and popular movements or through the virus of communalism engulfing them? Through the growth of the role of religion in daily life? Through entertainment? Through a geometrical increase in violence and terror - of the state and against it- becoming the new currency of settling matter , the new language of politics? "My basic thesis is what I have said is there is a close interrelationship between an increasingly desperate and repressive state apparatus and the growth in rapidity and virility of the communal spirit and of communal violence. We are entering a period of growing disintegration caused by a party which may espouse national unity but has in fact permitted so much violence in so many regions as a result of the backlash from local elites over the people over such a long time. "With all this can the secular Indian state survive? That is really the key question we have to ask. For the Indian state having taken the decision of moving from an agenda of structural transformation to an agenda of technological transformation which would make the state strong in aggressive terms, competitive in the interational arena and hegemonical in the region, can it really respond to people's aspirations or will it be forced to manipulate the electorate through essentially communal appeals? Elections and Democracy "And the key operational issue of course is something we as intellectuals have so far shied away from, namely the relationship between elections and democracy: does electroal democracy incite chauvinist sentiments and encourage communalism? Increasingly, it appears that the whole deomcratic space is being taken up by the compulsion of the electoral process, in fact the compulsions of the party in power, the compulsions of a party that wants perpetual power. In such a view of democracy, there is no role of the people as such, only of them as voters whose heads are to be counted, or forced to be counted in a certain direction. The name of the game is to have a majority of them with you. Democracy becomes majoritarianism and with a growing polarization of society, such majoriatianism gets embroiled in the clash between majorities and minorities at the community level. The result is communal politics. Need of the Hour More Democratization through Grass-roots Organizations "Unless such an understanding of democracy is forcefully countered, the communal orientation of politics cannot be forcefully countered. What needs to be emphasized is that mere electoral democracy is a very partial democracy and can in fact, coexist extremely reactionary elements, whereas inherent in a true democracy is the notion of a large and extensive infrastructure of pepole's organizations, not what Americans call "pressure groups" which are lobbies near the corridors, but at all leverls, and especially at the ground level. If we donot do this, I think there is no escape from the disaster we are facing. Because electoral and legislative compulsions have undermined the mass role of even mass parties so that instead of using the limited arena of electoral politics for strengthening and widening the mass base, it is the mass base that is being rendered a limited arena and used simply for engaging in electoral politics. "This then is the key issue facing parties and non-party organizations that really believe in true democratic transforamtion. As we forget that, the larger issues of nationality, decentralization, class organizations fo the poor will also be forgotten, largely because of this exclusive preoccupation with electoral and legislative politics and with the mere struggle for survival. And as these matters recede from our attention, our capacity to deal with communalization of politics will also recede. Communalization of politics must thus be seen as a necessary concomitant of the decline of the infrastructure of democracy. And its defeat rests essentially on the rejuvenation of the infrastructure. Minorities Must Join Hands "Such a rejuvenation entails sustained response on the part of the truly affected strata - in this case the minorities themselves, and not just the religious minorities, but the whole panorama of social minorities, ranging from the dalits and adivasis to the backwards consisting of historically disadvantaged communities to the forset and migrant populations. This may sound a disparate bunch and so it is, except that they all happen to be victims of the same techno-economic and social processes of wanton marginalization. "With is more, in India it is possible to aggregate minorities. In fact, as a land, and a people, India is a panorama of minorities and draws its richenss from the fact that every grouping is a minority and acquires potency and resilience by working in consort with other minorities. That is why there was no communalism in the pre-colonial period, it being an essentially modern phenomenon, and its worst manifestation being essentialy an outgrowth of undermining the pluralist multi-minoritiesconception of India and imposing on it a majoritarian, homogenising, universalizing conception. It is upto the minorities to restore to India its essential plurality by acting jointly in a common struggle for citizenship from which they are presentlky being debarred. Need for Grass-root Initiatives and Timely Intervention "This, inturn, entails active and sustained citizen intiatives to intervene in the political process whenever it goes off the rail and become prone to violence and repression, terror and terrorism. This is an area of immense crative potential in which ordinary people can participate in their myriad ways in shaping the present and the future of the country. There is so much that needs to be done, so little by way of available organizations and leadership, so large the scope for new experiences through experimetnation. The fact that it was not until almost four months after the anti-reservation riots began in Ahmedabad that some sort of a citizen action group Nagrik Sangathan got formed bears enough testimony to the growing polarization everywhere which does not permit rapid and effective intervention. The contrast with the formation of the Nagrik Ekta Manch in Delhi immediately after the November 1984 massacre and the preparation of the PUDR-PUCL report WHO ARE THE GUILTY? so soon thereafter is striking. Since then, becasue of these initiatives, a number of journalistic, civil liberties, women's and other citizens groups have decided to focus on combating communalism in Delhi and elsewhere. And yet, in Gujarat, the presumed forte of voluntary effort, no significant citizen effort that could transcend caste and communal barriers have emerged. In between the two are situations like Hyderabad where a major initiative like Hyderabad Ekta has tried to mediate in an atmosphere of growing polarization and hostility. "All this adds up to one conclusion: communalism in India, especially of recent vintage, is a direct outcome of the decline in democratic politics, in participation, in effective citizen action. It is only by rejuvenating citizen initiative and forcing the state to concede to the just demands of the minorities that a long-term strategy of combatting communalism can evolve. --------