India: Exception to Textbook Model of Democracy

I lived in India for all of my life and I still don’t understand the political climate of my country. Sure it’s a democracy–but how is it still a democracy? Democratic Theory states that poverty, widespread illiteracy, and a deeply hierarchized social structure are inhospitable conditions for a democracy to function in. Yet except for 18 months under the leadership of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, India has held on to its democratic institutions for 65 years. India, it seems, defies the textbook model of democracy.

Doomsday theorists have been predicting the inevitable collapse of the Indian democratic framework since the 1970s, and yet it persists. So what enables a democracy to survive in such hostile conditions in a country as diverse as India?

British Liberal discourse argued that India was an ‘infant civilization’ that lacked rationality. It was the job of the British to tutor this primitive society on the art of self-governance under a political roof rather than a cultural one. In the decade before India gained independence from the British, the British Raj had decided to experiment with self-governance. Provincial governance was turned over to indigenous politicians and Indian National Congress Party gained more experience through local governance.  Indian freedom fighters and indigenous politicians, however, recognized the glitch in this discourse. Either knowingly or unknowingly, the British Crown’s method of ‘divide and rule’ was preventing India from becoming a nation state. With no notion of unity and no concept of an Indian identity there was no chance of India ever being able to stand up on her own two feet. Through mass mobilization, Gandhi united the country and gave the Indians reason to fight. When the Congress had managed to establish itself as a competitive political party with very strong British institutional framework, the British had no choice but to leave the country. How could they have denied the Indians self-rule when they were actively implementing the values of Britain’s democratic political institutions? Indian Democracy was not a product of British legacy; rather, it was fought for by the Indians.

Now we come to the Economic argument about democracy. Economic and Democratic scholars have observed that modern democracies evolved as a result of industrialization. How? Well, mostly because the evolution of the peasantry into an urban proletariat is apparently necessary for a democracy to be born. India, however, is an exception to the rule. India’s peasantry, which makes up a large chunk of the country’s population, still exists. In fact, it is the masses that vote more than the Indian elite do. This once again goes against the Western model of democracy where the elite vote and the poor don’t. And why doesn’t India’s upper class vote? Because of the lack of faith in the country’s now corrupt parliamentary system and dishonest politicians. Of course that’s another topic we can get into in the next post…

And finally, I’d like to come to the issue of India’s wide range of ethnicities. It’s rather unfortunate that I call it an ‘issue’ because diversity is a beautiful thing. But in India, ethnic rather than class conflict is the main source of political violence. The two main ethnic conflicts are caste-based strife and Hindu Muslim rioting. However, widespread rioting has never occurred in the country. Rioting is usually regionally or locally specific. Of course, that doesn’t seem to be the situation in the media. “Police force unable or unwilling to control rioting in Kashmir: Collapse of the system on the rising back of corruption?” Yes that very obviously gives readers the notion that the system is collapsing. But is it really? The only ethnic cleavage that is capable of tearing India apart is the Hindu-Muslim divide. The partition of 1947 took millions of lives and homes, but many scholars believe that the partition of India has benefited the political climate of the country. It eliminated a large amount (but not all) of tension in the political arena. Right now, only one Hindu Nationalist party, the BJP, exists in India’s political field. However, it is unlikely that the BJP will ever dominate the Indian political scene for a large number of reasons. The Muslims in India oppose them, the ‘low-caste’ Indians oppose them, and their ideology of Hindu majoritarianism is in sharp contrast to the basic principle of Secularism of the Indian Constitution.

There’s no textbook answer to the big question of how India continues to be an exception to the rule of democratic theory. I’d sum it up in three words – The Indian Spirit. It’s indefinable, intricate, refreshing, exotic, and unique – Much like the country of its origin. It encompasses all that is India.

By Himani Sood