The system over which the Congress has presided since independence with the brief Janata interregnum between 1977 and 1979 is obviously in deep trouble in both physical and moral terms. Surprisingly though it may appear on a surface, this is as much an expression of the overall success of the system as of its inadequacy in the new situation. But this is in fact the case as even a superficial probe would show.
Let us take the physical aspect first. As is well known to students of Indian politics, the first to defect from the Congress were the landowning peasant castes in large parts of north India. They had been the main beneficiaries of the zamindari abolition measures Congress governments implemented in the wake of independence and development programmes such as extension of irrigation and credit. The defection of Chaudhari Charan Singh (UP), Rao Birendra Singh (Haryana) and Mr GN Singh (Madhya Pradesh) in 1967 was symbolic of a widespread trend in the communities they represented; their defection was unprincipled only in a superficial sense.
Political Ambitions
The point I wish to underscore is that these groups moved away from the Congress precisely because they had done well under the system and had as a result developed political ambitions which the Congress was unable to accommodate for want of enough space in the system. The spread of modem education had played a significant role in arousing their ambitions and producing men who could provide the necessary leadership. Incidentally, some of these groups, the Jats, for example, had sought to carve out small independent political domains for themselves in the twilight of the Moghul rule in the 18th century, that is before the emergence of the British East India Company as the new sovereign power in the sub-continent.
The same is true of two other Congress constituencies, the scheduled castes and the Muslims, who are showing signs of moving away from the party. The scheduled castes now possess an elite as a result of the policy of reservations for them not only in legislatures, including Parliament, but also in services, schools and colleges. This elite regards itself the equal of other elites in the country. Simultaneously the scheduled castes have become conscious of the political leverage their numbers give them and, thanks to the protection that the state machinery affords them, they are not as terrorised as they used to be of the power of the land-owning communities. It may be an exaggeration to talk of a social revolution. But big enough change has taken place to give the scheduled castes a new sense of dignity. Naturally they too want bigger space than that the state machinery affords them, they are not as terrorised as they used to be of the power of the land-owning communities. It may be an exaggeration to talk of a social revolution. But big enough change has taken place to give the scheduled castes a new sense of dignity. Naturally they too want bigger space than they are able to find under the Congress umbrella.
Among the Muslims, three points are notable. First, a new generation has come up which does not feel responsible for partition and guilty on that count. Secondly, a new middle class has arisen which is not content with such physical security as the Congress system has provided; it yearns for a proper share in power. It has not yet discovered the route to power but that is a different matter. Thirdly, a substantial section in the community has done well enough and acquired sufficient resources and confidence not to feel frightened. For all its weaknesses and failures Congress secularism has worked.
An attack on a system by its beneficiaries and defection from it by them are not a cause for surprise. Such developments are normal. Indeed, revolutions are brought about by such elements, though in India a revolution is almost certainly not on the horizon.
Let us now take the moral dimension of the problem which has come to preoccupy substantial chunks of the educated middle class not only in large cities but also in semi-urbanised small towns, thanks partly to the Bofors and HDW submarine payoff scandals and their political and journalistic fall-out.
I for one regard the Bofors and HDW submarine affair (the two broke into the open more or less simultaneously) as a trigger, though, of course, a pretty big one, for the explosion which has been occupying us since April 1987. As I see things, the issue has assumed the importance it has not because the payoffs are popularly seen to be isolated instances of corruption in high places, or because these have exposed the possible chinks in Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s armour as Mr Clean, or because a leader has been available in Mr VP Singh who could crystallise the anti-Rajiv sentiment in the country, but because the payoffs have provided eloquent examples of the rottenness of the system which large sections of society have for long regarded as rotten.
Widening Scope
So in terms of the Bofors and HDW submarine deals themselves, we have to widen the scope of the discussion to cover corruption in general. Broadly speaking, we have to live with two kinds of corruption – the petty corruption of the petty clerks in departments which provide different kinds of services and goods often in short supply and the big corruption of the big fellows, that is of individuals who can help others make big money or prevent them from doing so. Surely this formulation itself shows that the Congress system has produced an economy in which it is possible to make huge sums of money. Surely this was not the case at the time of independence. Surely this is an indication that the Congress system has helped generate a kind of wealth which has not been known in our country in living memory.
I have spoken of the achievements of the system at this length because this aspect of the much talked of crisis of the system has got wholly obscured. Having done so, I can now take up the other aspect – the inadequacy of the system.
I have a view of Indian socialism (and communism) which relates it to the Brahminical search, of course unconscious, for preserving, consolidating and extending the ascendancy they and their junior allies had won under the British Raj as a result of the “pacification” of the warrior peasant groups which had come to dominate the political scene once again during the decline of the Moghul empire in the 18th century and had in fact managed to retain substantial power even under the great Moghuls from Akbar to Aurangzeb. This view is not unrelated to my perception of socialism generally as a product of the intelligentsia engaged in a power struggle with the producers of wealth by way of commerce and industry. But I propose to discuss that question some other time. Here my purpose is more limited.
Even assuming that Nehru’s concept of a mixed economy in which the public sector was in control of the “commanding heights” was inspired by the Indian reality which was characterised by the absence of a strong entrepreneurial class and not by ideological considerations, the experiment had more or less exhausted its potentialities by the time of his death in May 1964. This point cannot be seriously contested by anyone capable of a rational and dispassionate assessment of developments since.
Virtual Monopoly
The public sector has, of course, vastly expanded since, especially in view of the nationalisation of the leading banks which has given the government a virtual monopoly over the country’s investible resources, the establishment and expansion of other institutions such as the Unit Trust of India for mobilising resources, and enormous investments in communications, power and irrigation. But it is difficult for anyone to claim that returns by way of stimulating the rate of growth have been adequate.
This is not to suggest that the private sector has compared favourably with its counterparts in some other Asian countries, including Pakistan. It has not. But there is at least a possible explanation for it. The private sector in India is private only in name. It is fully controlled by the government and the government has left hardly any resources outside its grip which it can tap without bypassing the system via the parallel economy or corrupting it. It is at best a junior partner of the public sector in the overall Indian economy.
This is an unnatural partnership. Corruption on the scale on which we witness it is the bastard child of this marriage of convenience. Unless this marriage is dissolved, we cannot have either a clean public life or growth. That is the crux of the matter and not the lack of proper rules which can supposedly eliminate the influence of big money from public life in general and elections in particular. The system has become dysfunctional and parasitical. Indian socialism should be more approximately called Indian parasitism.
To his credit, Mr Rajiv Gandhi knows this to be the case in his bones. But he has not even tried to convince his colleagues in the government and the Congress party of the correctness of his approach. He has wavered and moved too cautiously to be able to show results which could help him carry the masses of the Indian people with him. And he is landed with an octopus in the bureaucracy out to frustrate him and everyone else interested in the country’s development. He has, however, powerful allies in Mr Gorbachov and Mr Deng Xiaoping. They are waging the ideological battle for him as well. But he has to have the skill and nerve to take advantage of their battle.
This is the third article in the series beginning with ‘The Congress Coalition’ (July 20)
The Times of India, 2 August 1988