by RAMACHANDRA GUHA
India, whose creation as a republic is the most recklessly ambitious experiment in history, has flourished. But old strains put the future in peril
Just over a year ago, Barack Obama described Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, as one of the “most extraordinary leaders,” he had met. Praising Singh for his “wisdom and decency,” the American president said that from their first meeting, he found they “share many of the same values, the same goals and the same vision for the well-being of our people.”
Praise as extravagant as this invited retribution, and 2011 was a disastrous year for Singh, with the Indian media exposing corruption scandals involving members of his cabinet. In one, the exchequer lost a staggering $40bn through the sale of radio frequencies to favoured private companies at well below market prices. A conscientious official had warned the prime minister’s office in advance and yet Singh did nothing to stop it. The rapid depreciation of the rupee and a slowdown in industrial production also undermined the prime minister’s reputation for economic management. In December, a proposal to allow foreign direct investment into supermarkets—which Singh had championed—collapsed owing to his failure to convince his party and coalition partners of its merits. That record raises questions not just about Singh’s leadership (and Obama’s judgement) but about the health of Indian democracy.
The Republic of India is home to the most uplifting as well as the most depressing aspects of the democratic experience. On the one hand, elections are fair and regular; there is a vigorous press and an independent judiciary; and Indians are freer to speak, learn and administer themselves in their own languages than in supposedly older nations and allegedly more advanced democracies. The sustenance of linguistic pluralism is a particular achievement; the 17 different scripts on the rupee note representing an ideal, of democracy with diversity, that shames many nations riven by discord over language. On the other hand, politicians in India are corrupt and the police often brutal, the bureaucracy is incompetent, and the divisions of caste, class and religion produce much social discontent.
The two sides to Indian democracy were starkly revealed at the time of the most recent general elections, in 2009. More than 400m voters participated in the largest exercise of the franchise in history. I spent 16th May in a TV studio in New Delhi, discussing the unexpectedly strong showing of the ruling Congress party. That the polls were peaceful led to a certain degree of self-congratulation. As one of my colleagues commented, while our neighbouring countries witnessed the election of generals, we put our trust instead in general elections.
Prospect for more
(Thanks to Robin Khundkar)