Federalism and Inequality in India
The empowerment of India’s sub-national political actors rolls on with the news that the Samajwadi Party are set to triumph in the elections of Uttar Pradesh, a huge state in North-East India with a population of over 200 million people. Widely reported as being a state-of-the-nation litmus test for public opinion towards the ruling coalition headed by the Congress Party, the results indicate the continuation of emergent trends and, potentially, the increased opposition to entrenched problems, within India’s politics. Congress currently look likely to finish fourth in the polls, despite vigorous campaigning from party darling Rahul Gandhi, whilst the incumbent Mayawati, of the Dalit-oriented Bahujan Samaj Party, has failed to hold onto control.
Post-Cold War transformation in India has seen a shift, in economic, political, and social affairs, away from a heavily centralised model to a new, equally choatic but more dispersed structure. This is not to say that the monolithic Indian state of old no longer exists, but as economic policy has empowered states to develop their own models, so political power has drifted away from the centre, with concurrent impacts on social mobilisation. Victory of the Samajwadi Party further institutionalises the new reality of weakened national parties, coalition government, and the empowerment of state-level actors and authority.
This is a process that has been ongoing for decades but the elections in Uttar Pradesh (UP) bring three key areas into focus: the division of the electoral dividend created by anti-corruption campaigning and sentiment, the enduring validity of dynastic political control, and the aforementioned impact of a redefined federalism. There is, of course, a fourth meta-point that never disappears: the role of caste politics.
Whilst the high profile leader of last year's protests against governmental corruption, Anna Hazare, has largely disappeared from the political scene, the discontent on which he capitalised, and the lack of resolution to the problems he broadly addressed, remains. Corruption is no stranger to Indian politics but there is certainly an increasing dismay at the extent to which it appears endemic and immovable. At a time when the political paralysis caused by clientalism and rent-seeking behaviour poses grave danger for the ‘rising India’ vision that middle classes have bought into, the spluttering of the growth engine exacerbates outrage at an increasingly dishevelled establishment. With GDP forecasts reduced, and inflation rising, the ruling United Progressive Alliance coalition headed by Congress needed to dynamically demonstrate that it is in touch with an India in flux. Despite this, in entrusting reinvigoration to the latest product of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, Congress may have compounded its own crisis.
Rahul Gandhi is the latest in a long-line of politicians drawn from the bloodline of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s central founding father and first Prime Minister. At 41 he is General-Secretary of the Congress Party and, following in the footsteps of other prominent family members such as former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, and current Congress President Sonia Gandhi (widow of Rajiv), Rahul is the most high profile face of a new generation of politicians within a party whose current leader, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is 79. During the UP elections he campaigned vigorously, making over 200 appearances on the stump to promote his party’s message. Whilst honestly accepting responsibility for the defeat is commendable, the reality of failure may indicate a wider loss of legitimacy relating to one of the bones of contention highlighted by Ramachandra Guha recently as emblamatic of stagnation within India’s democracy – the stifling of credible politicians at the hands of dynastic elites.
With all this in mind, the reinvigoration of representative democracy within India is likely to come from the local level (though obviously ‘local’ is a bit relative when UP is the size of Brazil). Mayawati, incumbent Chief Minister since 2007, is a much-debated example of this possible trend. Rising to power on the back of an electoral base in the Dalit (untouchable) community, Mayawati has faced criticism for a huge rise in her personal wealth since assuming office and also for constructing prominent statues of herself and other members of the Bahujan Samaj Party throughout the state. This fuzziness over corruption, while possibly not the central factor in her failure to retain office, is certainly a weakness and may have played into the Samajwadi Party’s successful campaigning within Other Backward Caste communities left out of the alleged patrimonial spoils.
The great success of India as a democracy has been the endurance of pluralism amidst stupendous diversity. Devolution of political power is a logical extension of this, even more so half a century out from independence as the contemporaries of Gandhi and Nehru depart the scene. Nonetheless the central institutions of the Indian state are essential, and they surely demand strong mass parties capable of leading coalitions and responding proactively to the needs of the majority of Indians who are yet to reap the tangible benefits of recent resurgence. There is, arguably, an increasing sense that simply trotting out the latest Nehruvian prince, however gifted, is not sufficient to placate the demands of a majority who are hungry for their piece of the much-heralded bigtime.
As regards India’s role in the world, the management of inequality is completely central. Where India presents itself as ‘the world’s largest free market democracy’ it is hindered by enduring mass poverty, especially in a political system where the voting poor cannot be sidelined. Equally, linked to the Nehruvian foreign policy angle that presented India as a representative of the global poor seeking to construct an equitable global order away from post-colonial power politics, an argument that presents India as a potential ‘global swing state’ is undercut by attempting to speak morally internationally without having solved the same problems domestically. India is, very obviously, not China. Nor is it Russia. Defining its worldwide identity as a democratic force for the global good means ensuring the economic success story continues to lift people out of poverty. It means, in short, backing up some old-school great power rhetoric with some iconoclastic great power responsibility. That example, successfully achieved, would be phenomenal.
It is not a gigantic step for an electorate appalled by public corruption to zero in upon issues relating to wider economic inequality. The UK itself is an example of this, where public outrage towards MPs expenses and cash for questions has drawn a line whose precedent is undermined by turning a blind eye to bank bailouts, big business tax avoidance, and the simultaneous imposition of austerity policies. The solidification of such a position within India could coalesce around a series of sub-national groups, linked to caste status, that may force not only significant reform upon central parties such as Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party, but also challenge the accelerated model of federalised liberalisation that has empowered and caught the imagination of the new Indian middle classes. This faultline, between the passengers and the baggage in the Indian transformation, will represent the pivotal issue around which continued reform turns and India’s new global role is defined.
James Hannah is a Research Associate at the Global Policy Institute – www.gpilondon.com
