Democracy beyond ballots: Threats to secularism, socialism

Let me start with my favourite question. Why is it that, of the thirty/forty nascent nations which emerged from the yoke of imperialism in the first half of the twentieth century in Asia, Australasia, Africa and South-America, India comprises the only country of its size and diversity to have remained a vibrant functioning democracy, while innumerable contemporary wrecks and ruins of constitutionalism litter the global landscape?

No doubt the first answer is possibly sheer good luck. But a close second is that while Gandhi and his atomic weapon of Ahimsa was vital to attain independence, India has remained a functioning & vibrant democracy because of Nehru as India’s first Prime Minister. India was singularly fortunate in getting its sequencing right: Gandhi first and Nehru later.

Nehru, intuitively, typified and practiced Voltaire’s famous dictum (also the essence of democracy) : “I disagree vehemently with you but defend to death your right to disagree with me”.

Three of the five tenets which he considered to be foundational to India’s destiny remain a vital part of the less visible non-institutional pillars of Indian democracy (the other two being Parliamentary Democracy and non-alignment). They are Secularism, Socialism and Federalism.

Secularism has been the heart and soul of Indian democracy from its inception, though it found express Constitutional expression much later. There is no more diverse spot on earth than India: the world’s largest democracy, the second most populous, the seventh largest in terms of area and the fourth largest by national GDP measured on purchasing power parity (PPP).

Its diversity is manifested in 22 scheduled languages, over 700 mother tongues, over 2000 dialects, the world’s largest population of 4 religions (Hindu, Sikh, Jain, and Parsi), the world’s second largest population of Muslims, and a significant number of other religious adherents.  Every major racial grouping is present in India and it has thousands of bewildering rituals, foods, smells, sounds, music in all forms, dances and so on.

With such pluralities, Secularism is a self-protective mechanism for India.  India has had a remarkable record of secular, non-theocratic governance, but if truth be told, the more one lets go in India, the more India binds and holds together. Conversely, the more one pulls or tries to bind or impose any uniform ethic, the more India is likely to break apart.

Secularism has been an effective vehicle to manage diversities. It has generated a sense of reassurance and security to India’s multiple diversities and provided a crucial underpinning for democracy. It is meant and intended to convey part ownership of democracy. Without this sense of belonging to and ownership of democracy by each aam admi, democracy cannot succeed.

As usual, the threats are almost entirely from within. There is a sinister and sustained attempt to impose a uniform ethic, to paternalistically decide what a citizen can wear, sing and eat, how he can behave, what he must think on certain occasions and what he must say on others. Instead of celebrating diversity, we mourn it as the biggest obstruction to nationalism.

We distort the idea of India by redefining the India of our dreams as the India of our demands. We live by a new ethic of suspicion and distrust, of glee at the fellow citizen’s discomfiture and of fear of speaking up in his favour when he is being tormented.

A second non-institutional pillar of democracy is federalism. It is vital for managing diversities. Federalism operates as a safety valve for the three Ds —- dissent, discomfort and dissatisfaction. It channels these three Ds into relatively manageable outlets of constitutional structures, whether they are provincial legislatures, district level autonomous councils or models of local governance like Panchayati Raj. Indian federalism has   quarantined   conflicts   within   states   or   sub-state   units and thus successfully prevented national conflagration.

Five significant developments have transmuted, over the last 70 years, the heavily unitary, quasi federal India at inception into a significantly more federal entity in operation, rightly resulting in it being called “accidental or inadvertent” federalism. Linguistic diversity resulted in creation of new states on the principle of linguistic contiguity and the three-language formula largely quietened the language riots of the 1960s.

Secondly, vigorous judicial review by the apex court since the new millennium has repeatedly quashed Article 356 incursions into federal autonomy. Thirdly, Panchayati Raj and local self-government, has created a humongous diaspora of elected local Panchayat officials (including 1.5 million women) who administer local self-government in the world’s largest model of fiscal and administrative decentralisation. Fourthly, economic liberalisation since 1988 and 1991 has considerably diluted the stranglehold of the central government in decision making. Finally, fiscal federalism, results in almost 45% receipts of the centre being transferred to the state either as the sharable tax revenues or as Central grants.

Threats to federalism include Central government discriminatory practices in fund devolution, selective waivers of financial demands according to matching or differing political colors of the Centre and the state concerned and a clearly Presidential style of central governance focused on micro managing everything. Catchwords or jumlebaazi like competitive or cooperative federalism cannot camouflage these aberrations.

Modern arm chair critics who retrospectively criticise Nehru’s belief in socialism-a third non institutional pillar-- by saying that it consigned India to a low so called Hindu rate of growth between 3.5. to 4.5%, fail to realise that it was socialist philosophy which laid a firm foundation for the public sector in India and resulted in India’s solidity and self-reliance in core sectors like steel, chemicals, textiles, indigenous defence manufacturing and banking. It gave us both a self-reliant as well as a competitive edge, though, concededly, it overstayed its welcome. Our ability to weather the 2008 global financial crisis with minimum pain and regain the 8.5% annual trajectory of growth within one year owes a lot to these foundations.

One contemporary counterpart of Nehru’s philosophy of socialism has been the world’s largest social welfare scheme, MNREGA, which despite opportunistic criticism when in opposition, has been largely followed and reluctantly lauded by the right wing successor government.

This “vituperative criticism when in opposition and ready adaptation without attribution when in power” model has been perfected by the present dispensation. Manifested across the board-from Aadhar, MNREGA, Food Security, GST to many others –these compliments, albeit left handed, say it all.

In conclusion, India’s amazing diversity is its   best   insurance   against   degeneration   of   democracy   or institutionalisation of dictatorship. To that must necessarily be added the intrinsic   nature   of   India   and   of   Indians   viz.   absorbent   and   highly argumentative.

Democracy in India has many miles to walk and many promises to keep. If it cannot be fairly castigated as an imperfect democracy, it is certainly also nowhere near being a perfect or near perfect democracy.

It is difficult to quantitatively calibrate whether we have covered half or more than 75% of the journey from imperfection to perfection.  We have not achieved, for example, the more capacious concept of democracy beyond the narrower view of seeing democracy exclusively in terms of public balloting and not as “the exercise of public reason” i.e. the larger concept of providing opportunities for citizens to participate in political discussion and, more importantly, to informed public choices in methods that transcend the ballot box.

Personally, I have no doubt, that we are well past the midway mark in the journey and that we will get there in the fairly proximate future. But the story has never been only about the destination or the result. It has been, as much, if not more, about the journey and that has undoubtedly been exciting and unusual.

The author is MP; National Spokesperson, Congress; former Addl Solicitor General of India and Senior Advocate