Democracy seldom has a seamless journey—it is full of multiple possibilities. Democracy brings out excitement and passions that may lead in different directions. India’s democracy is no exception. In fact, the historical setting in which democracy first emerged in India and the many contextual problems that it faced have made Indian democracy a somewhat inconsistent phenomenon. It is inconsistent in the sense that groups and individuals steadfastly upholding democracy in one context or situation extend only weak support to it in some other situation; people express their full support to democracy and yet settle for sub-democratic options. Thus, citizen support to democracy has contextual variation. Indian democracy is inconsistent also in the sense that different arenas of life manifest varying degrees of democracy. This variation means that individual dignity and group claims receive popular support in some arenas of public life, but they may be less acceptable in some other arenas. Thus, political equality is upheld in the arena of party politics and electoral competition, but not so much in the field of governance. Similarly, claims of caste groups are recognized as important and valid, but claims of minority religious communities are always suspect. This same inconsistency is witnessed in the behavior of democratic institutions in India. Because of such inconsistencies, it is quite easy a task to find fault with India’s democracy. If one were to list the ‘problems’ faced by India’s democracy, they would be practically countless! From social inequality to slow pace of development to electoral malpractices to elite takeover to so many other problems. But then, which democracy does not have problems? So, pointing at Indian democracy’s problems does not tell us much—it only underscores the fact that like all other democracies, India’s democracy also exists in an imperfect environment and the democratic project, like anywhere else, is a ‘work in progress’. But if one were to specifically develop a framework of evaluation for India’s democracy and wanted to map its journey, where does one look? Given its inconsistent nature, the ambivalences ingrained in this enterprise, and the multifaceted characteristics it has developed, rather than pronouncing a ‘balance sheet’ of India’s democracy, it is useful to locate the key paradoxes that mark the functioning of India’s democracy. Similarly, the journey of India’s democracy—through these paradoxes and because of them—is full of diversions and possibilities of distortions. Grasping these paradoxes, diversions, and distortions helps us become better judges of, and better participants in, this enterprise called Indian democracy.
Paradox One
Quite often, democracy is identified with elections. For most citizens, elections constitute the only window through which they can jump into the courtyards of power, momentarily. The electoral arena has many accomplishments to its credit as far as Indian democracy is concerned. Not only do Indian people approve of electoral democracy overwhelmingly, they also believe that their vote matters. (In 2013, two persons out of every three believed that their vote made a difference.) Over time, the belief in election has also increased because people tend to think that electoral malpractices have become less and less. (In 2013,6 per cent said that there were many problems in the way elections are conducted, and another 7 per cent felt elections were not fair.) People’s participation in elections has also reached a robust level comparable to most democracies. As already noted, turnout in national elections often touches 60 per cent and is much more than that in most state assembly elections. Reported participation in campaigns is also quite high (17 per cent), and about 38 per cent people identify themselves as ‘close to some party or the other’ (Lokniti 2015; SDSA team 2008). This vibrancy of electoral arena, however, gets punctured when one begins to look at the underbelly of electoral politics. Electoral politics is infamous for the huge financial resources that it demands. This makes it next to impossible for ordinary citizens to think of active participation in elections beyond campaign participation. Moreover, the collection of money(and its spending) remain shrouded in mystery. There are no restrictions on how much a party should spend on elections. Existing rules require a candidate to submit the accounts of money spent on elections, but everyone one suspects that mythical amounts are spent, often in dubious manner. Orgnizations like the Association for Democratic Reforms have been publicizing this aspect of elections in India and have been pushing for substantial electoral reforms (Association for Democratic Reforms). Thus, the source of money that is spent and the manner in which it is spent are two key problems in electoral politics. Beyond promises and policies to obtain loyalty of sections of voters, there are allegations of ‘vote buying’ either through distribution of consumer goods, benefits, etc., among the electorate or more crass distribution of money among voters. In any case, the near-obscene use of money during elections downgrades the democratic character of elections. Also, the local electoral context is often too murky to match the idealized picture of elections that we imagine. This murkiness is not just because of conspiracies and intrigues, it is more because of the crass muscle power that is involved. While electoral violence has certainly come down after the 1990s, there are places, localities, villages, and even states where ‘sensitive’ situation occurs during campaign and voting. So, here is the paradox. Elections have a central place in democratic practice in India; elections also have considerable legitimacy and large-scale social acceptance, but the underside of elections makes them very unattractive and raises questions about the democratic authenticity of the exercise.
Paradox two
India has a strong democratic framework—its Constitution is founded on robust democratic thinking, and its civil and military bureaucracies are trained and expected to function within broader democratic framework under the political masters.
The institutional arrangement is supposed to protect individual liberties and also balance the diverse sectional interests in society through negotiation and compromise. More importantly, the Constitution seeks to address the issue of empowering the state and, at the same time, ensures a humane and democratic state. This is indeed a tall order because, by nature, the state is inclined to restrict freedoms, resort to regulative powers, and become a repository of repressive urges that prevail in society. Democracy is an ongoing struggle to tame the state, make it amenable to reason, and reduce its craving for regulation and repression. The efforts in this direction are quite evident in the Constitution. But the Indian state, over the past seven decades, has often defied the democratic logic and underscored its repressive stateness at the cost of freedoms. The undemocratic and repressive recesses in India’s institutional practices are sometimes not only worrying, but also fearsome. This defiance of the constitutional spirit of democracy takes two forms. One emanates from state practices adopted by bureaucracy, police, armed forces, and other. These institutions often behave in an anti—people manner. Thus, one keeps hearing of ‘excesses’ and ‘encounters’ besides plain misbehavior and unlawful actions. But perhaps more seriously, the formal choices of the state, in terms of laws and regulations, often transgress the democratic spirit. From preventive detentions to anti—terror laws to use of anti—sedition law to laws pertaining to organized crime to special powers accorded to police, paramilitary, or armed forces in ‘disturbed’ areas—the paraphernalia of repressive legislation has kept expanding and receiving judicial approval in most cases. The thin line between security and law and order, on the one hand, and trigger—happy repressive instincts of the state apparatus, on the other, is always deceptively blurred. Thus, we often come across the second paradox: India has a long history of struggle against colonial state which sought to restrict the realm of individual liberties; it has a robust democratic culture of popular mobilization and assertion, and a constitutional document that flows from the democratic logic of limited government. And yet, experience of the last seven decades shows that the state has acquired many undemocratic powers, and its practice too routinely smacks of contempt for people and their rights.
Paradox Three
Right from the nineteenth century, many political mobilizations have often hinged on ‘identities’. Therefore, the questions relationship between identity and interest, on the one hand, and identity politics and democracy, on the other, have always been critical to the nature of democratic politics in India. It would be a mistake to imagine that citizens develop only abstract, individuated personalities completely devoid of any affection or engagement with community ties. Language, region, religion, caste, ethnicity, etc., are all very likely candidates for individuals’ affections. Democratic contestations are as much about such identities as they are about material concerns or life conditions. So democracies would always witness, allow, and even facilitate popular mobilizations on the basis of identities. Besides, ‘identities’ are often entangled with material locations of groups. Cast is not just a question of identity; it is much more a question of life chances and inequalities involving differences in social status and economic well—being. This is equally true of minority religious communities or Adivasi communities. From material condition, social reality produces a combination of the two, and this makes politics of identity even more commonplace in democracies. In India, therefore, we often witness community mobilizations that exhibit the flag of common identity, but are primarily concerned with issues of survival and/or dignity.
The period of demands for statehood was a phase of explosion of language/ region-based identities. After 1978, the explosion of caste identities took place and, subsequently, we have also been witnessing explosion of religious identities. Each one of these facilitated the articulation of anxieties and concerns of section that otherwise might have been consigned to the larger category called ‘people’. The focus on identity, however, ensured their differentiation from other groups and also meant an emphasis on group-specific issues of recognition, accommodation, and well-being. At the same time, this style of mobilization also meant that interests and publicness could be comprehended only through the prism of identity. In each of these phases, we come across arguments that tend to mix the material with the symbolic. But in the post-1990 period, the material aspects of community concerns slowly became less salient compared to the emotive and symbolic concerns. The post-1990phase may in fact be described as the identity turn in India’s democratic politics. This ‘turn’ included two contrasting identity mobilizations. On the one hand, it included mobilizations based on wider, homogenizing identities or mega-identities such as ‘OBC’ Muslim, and Hindu identity mobilizations; on the other, a wide range of more specific and fragmented identities also emerged during this phase. In India’s North East, this took the form of rise of tribe-specific identity mobilization, while in other parts, the form of caste-specific mobilizations. But whether homogenizing or fragmenting, identity politics—and an overemphasis on it—raise several complex issues. One issue is about the relationship between identity and representation. Legislatures, executives, party bodies, and so on need to reflect the multiplicity of identity-based aspirations, and yet a merely mechanical reflection of every community does not necessarily ensure true representation of the community or its interests. In other words, it is a moot question if mirror images of society truly ensure representation of all ‘parts’ and also representation of the ‘whole’. Another complex issue is the gradual decoupling of identity from interest. As noted earlier, excessive concern with identity leads to a search for tokens, symbols, heroes, and spokespersons rather than systematic pursuance of community’s interests. This might lead to a situation where politics is conducted in the language of identity and yet interest of members of groups are not necessarily cared for. Moreover, as identities become frozen, every identity group tends to believe in the exclusive authenticity of its own demands and expectations. As a result, the space for negotiation shrinks and democracy becomes impossible to function. Whether in the case of demands by various castes for inclusion in a particular category (Gujjars demanding inclusion in ST category, Patel Marathas demanding inclusion in OBC category, and so on), or in the case of regions/states (Karnataka versus Tamil Nadu on the Cauvery issue or Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan on Sutlej water), one witnesses this near deadlock of democratic negotiation as a result of identity excess. So the third paradox is as follows: India’s democratic politics has become richer and more representative because of identity mobilizations, but identity mobilizations have also produced erosion of democratic spirit of negotiation and accommodation as democracy takes the form of assortment of autonomous, identity-based republics.
Paradox four
Diversity is the most celebrated feature of Indian society. The creation of national sentiment within the context of this diversity has been a fascinating process.
After Independence, conscious efforts were made both constitutionally and in political practice to live happily with this diversity. It is of course not the case that India is so unique that no other nation state has much diversity, but there are two aspects of India’s diversity that still require attention. On the one hand, India’s diversity is by far the most complex and overlapping social phenomenon, and besides scale and size, what distinguishes India is the overlapping pattern of diversity. For instance, just as there is ‘religious’ diversity between Hindus and Muslims, there is linguistic diversity among both these communities. So, it is not easy to privilege any one basis of diversity over all others. Secondly, in the post-Independence period, the overall emphasis has been to let these diverse social groups retain their separate cultural existences. This has given certain sanctity to the idea of diversity—so much so that India’s nationalism and India’s democratic practice cannot be imagined without their varied diversities. Diversity, thus, is not merely a social given, an empirical fact willy-nilly accepted; it is a foundational principle of both nationalism and democracy in India. To put it provocatively, no community has to give up its identity in order to be, or to ‘prove’ being, Indian. While it is expected that democracy and nationalism would thus privilege diversity, both also intervene in the process of shaping the fate of diverse groups and the fate of intergroup relations. Nationalism put a premium on homogeneity, and though nationalism in India seeks to respect diversity, a natural side effect of nationalist rhetoric always produces unease as far as diversities are concerned. Democracy has a more complex impact on diversity. Facilitates and even encourages the assertion of separate identity of various diverse social groupings. At the same time, the democratic requirement of constructing a larger public leads to homogenization. By nature, parties seek to build not only instrumental political coalitions, they also contribute to the building of cross-sectional groups that acquire homogenized identities. Electoral democracy, in particular, is famous for this contradictory relationship with diversity. Parties based on ethnic appeal do have space in electoral politics (particularly when politics become more competitive), but such parties then get imprisoned by their following and hence cannot grow beyond those communities. This encourages parties and competitive politics to evolve common platforms, common vocabularies, common imageries, and even common vices, gradually undercutting the diversity of existences. While a typical complaint about ‘politics’ is often that it fragments, that it sharpens differences, that it juxtaposes one community against the other, politics in reality produces an amazing amount of homogenization of ideas and practices, penetrating the cultural defenses of most communities. This brings us to the fourth and a deeper paradox: the urge for underscoring separate existence and the push towards homogenization constitute the cusp at which India’s diversities exist today. One would hope democracy to strengthen diversities and also make them not only coexist, but also prepare them to negotiate and compromise, however, democracy also tends to obliterate diversities and fundamentally change the meaning of diversity. So, the paradox is that India’s democracy is expected to be the protector of diversities, but its practice has often tended to strengthen forces of homogenization.
Paradox five
When India embarked on the journey of formal democracy, it was predominantly poor. The economic backwardness of the country was not just confined to macroeconomic parameters of the gross domestic product and the like—as a country, India was of course poor, but a very large section of its population also was very poor. Debates in Indian economics have been marked by the differences among experts on what constitutes poverty and how to calculate the numbers of the poor in the country’s population. But the fact of a large population being poor, living in subhuman conditions, not being able to fend itself with adequate calories per day is something that has been a matter of agreement among all the experts and government statistics. This poses a question about India’s democratic practice. Democracy is founded on the principles of people’s participation and people’s well-being. Then, how is it that continued practice of democracy takes place despite continued existence of poverty? This ‘puzzle’ was eloquently brought to notice by Yogendra Yadav through our conversations and also through his unpublished paper ‘Search for a Feasible Social Democracy’ (Yadav2011) This puzzle can be answered only by adopting a nuanced understanding of the way democracy function. In a sense, this puzzle is not typical only of India. It has been argued that democracies in poor societies have various constraints and preoccupations while making policy choices. India’s democracy has been more concerned with transforming the pre-existing balance of social powers. This process has meant that the emphasis has been more on bringing to the fore-front new elite from previously deprived social sections. Curiously, the elite coming from the deprived sections find that retaining this newly found power is not conditional upon perceptible improvement in the life conditions of their social base. Therefore, there is less incentive for them to work for economic improvement of their voters. Poverty in a generalized sense is not seen as a scandal on par with the scandal of social inequality. Simultaneously, democratic mobilization has strengthened many community loyalties and, thus, the process of individuation has not taken off in full earnest despite the march of capitalism in the sphere of economic organization. The continuous reinvention of communities and incorporation of individuals into communities deflects the focus away from poverty. Finally, democracy also raises expectation and hope that things would improve this hope (and ‘enchantment’ as Kaviraj [2011] calls it) makes democracy feasible despite the failure to deliver well-being. These are, of course, tentative answers, and they do not help us run away from the central question about India’s democracy. So, we can frame the fifth paradox thus: despite continued existence, India’s democracy allows the high incidence of poverty, squalor, malnutrition, ill-health, and hugely inadequate access to decent education among at least a quarter of its population (by conservative estimate). While the elite’s search for political power hinges on popular approval, this conditionality does not incentivize politics for addressing poverty. In the light of these of these paradoxes, it is necessary to ask where India’s democracy goes from here.
Whither Democracy: Democracy’s Diversions
Liberal democracies have a tendency to normalize elite rule under conditions of free political competition elite rule under conditions of free political competition but limited policy choices. Given the routineness of elections in India, it is quite possible that such a limited version of democracy under elite rule would take shape and become the normal condition of politics. In such a condition, there is a multiplicity of formal choices in terms of number of parties and number of candidates, but most of the competitors tend to adopt a more or less similar set of policies. This creates a semblance of choice—choice of rulers without much choice in matters of policies. ‘Normal’ politics underplays the fault lines in the society and brings to the forefront a consensus that tends to dominate imagination and practice.
We have seen how the Nehruvian consensus predominated in the early post-Independence period and that the decade of the 2010s came close to bringing in a new consensus that was in the making since the 1990s.while India’s democracy appears poised to gain this normalness’, it is not devoid of the experience and possibilities of ‘diversions’. India’s democracy has experienced and is likely to experience, in near future, at least two critical diversions. The absence of a liberal political—social environment always keeps diverting democratic politics. Indian society is not without its own variant of tolerance, but, theoretically, tolerance is different from a liberal norm that helps consolidate democracy through the formality of freedom of expression and freedom of even non conformism. Resulting from the lack of a strong liberal ethic, Indian politics often witnesses various vigilante actions in the name of people’s anger, people’s dislike, and hurt sentiments. Vigilantism feeds on both public disappointment about inability to effectively intervene in ongoing public discourse and policy processes on the one hand, and unease with different and non—con—for mist views, on the other. Appropriating these two, many groups take it upon themselves to protect what they believe to be the right norms and values. Such vigilantism is justified as public expression of some strong emotion and is often mistaken by its perpetrators and supporters as ‘democratic’ outbursts. However, to the extent indulgence towards vigilantism is a risky proposition, vigilantism and street politics constitute a recurring diversion. Another diversion, with which Indians are too familiar, is that of populism. Between 1969 and 1972, Indira Gandhi experimented with populist politics at the all-India level. She was successful—but only for a short period. A rhetoric that everybody was against her, a claim that she wanted to work for the poor, a constant nationalist theme, complete concentration of power in her hands through a personality cult deliberately cultivated within the party, and above all, the demagogic skill to create the category called the ‘people’ and to address that category by drowning all other differentiations constituted the core elements of her populist authoritarian approach. There are many instances of populist politics at the state level too: Tamil Nadu has perhaps the longest and strongest history of populist politics displayed by both the DMK and AIADMK, Maharashtra has witnessed populism of Bal Thackeray, Andhra Pradesh has had a brief populist stint when N.T. Rama Rao emerged on the political scene there, Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal conducts her politics mostly in the populist mode, and Kejriwal, too, shows a propensity to use the populist framework. Around the Sixteenth Lok Sabha election, all-Indian politics came close to most of the elements that constituted Indira Gandhi’s populist politics. The elements listed earlier appear to be replaying almost like dejava since around 2013. This second turn towards populist diversion was occasioned by a sense of crisis and failure of politics—a feeling exacerbated both by the incompetent governance of UPA-II and the populist rhetoric of the anti-corruption movement. Narendra Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat, seized the opportunity and not only won the election, but also continued with the populist political strategies since then.
Danger of distortions
Another trajectory of democratic politics, beyond small or large diversions, consists of distortion of the logic of democracy. A community-based majoritarian under-standing of democracy constitutes such a distortion. Just as populism bases itself on raw democratic sentiment, majoritarianism, too, is situated in the appropriation of raw passions of a community.
The previous chapter has already discussed this tendency experienced in India. The difference between populism and majoritarianism is that the former is somewhat easy to push back—a reversal is easier—while the latter is likely to be more durable, more difficult to reverse, and has the capacity to make an impact even when not exercising formal political power. More than a craving for a good leader, majoritarianism represents a craving among a community to assert its claims over and above those of all others by privileging its own claims as truly democratic and representative because of numerical strength and a sense of historical ownership of geographies, cultures, and norms. This craving undercuts the normative and empirical importance of diversity. In a sense, this is connected to the fourth paradox discussed earlier—regarding the handling of diversities. Since the late 1980s, Hindu majoritarianism has been gaining ground in India. By the 2010s, the majoritarian norm had become widespread enough to acquire prestige and legitimacy. That a party upholding Hindu majoritarianism came to power in 2014 is only one part of the larger story. It is also important to note that Hindu majoritarianism is only one, and more organized and sustained, variant of majoritarianism, Regional and caste-based versions of majoritarianism have become acceptable in many parts of the country and the so-called ‘secular’ and non-Hindutva forces are also not averse to majoritarianism arguments in regional and cast contexts. This, more than mere Hindutva, ensures a long life for majoritarianism and also indicates not just a diversion, but also a major distortion of democracy, a distortion that is theoretically legitimized on majoritarian grounds and is also popularly accepted as a natural meaning of democracy.
In hope and Undying Optimism
In contrast to these diversions and distortions, is it possible to expect expansion and deepening of democracy? There is often a temptation among democrats to expect that democracy would bring about large-scale transformations ipso facto. It is necessary to take a sober view of what democracy can achieve—what it is meant to achieve. Democracy is not a ‘one-pill-cures-all-ills’ magic potion. So, it is unreasonable to imagine that democracy would address all social problems. Yet democratic politics must ideally strive for two task. One is to bring more and more social spheres under the rubric of democratic exchange. Beyond elections and governance, democracy needs to become the normative basis for other sociocultural fields as well. Two the democratic norm has to become more entrenched, where people’s commitment to democracy is not easily unsettled by momentary attractions or momentary disappointments. This dual process of expansion and deepening of democracy is the long term challenge for democrats. This challenge can be handled by sustained practice of democratic politics in the first place, and in any case, it is a long battle that can be fought with popular support only. After all, democracy is best at facilitating free play of alternatives and hope. Both optimism and hope can remain alive only through the agency of the people themselves and, in that sense, the future trajectory of democracy in India is predicated on people’s engagement with a lively critique of existing democratic practice, their informed interest in democratic contestations, and in the final instance, popular initiative.