Comment

Competitive political democracy

MOST liberal political theorists are justifiably proud of the success of our grand experiment of electoral political democracy. They point to the relatively high turnout of voters in successive Lok Sabha elections, a figure which has steadily risen from about 45% in 1951-2 to 58.1% in the last elections in 2004. More important, unlike in many western democracies, there is no evidence of either fatigue or voter withdrawl from the electoral process. Clearly, if an active participation of voters in a competitive electoral democracy is any evidence of the success of the democratic experiment, India can legitimately claim to have succeeded in laying down the foundations of a participatory, democratic political system.

Second, by constitutionally mandating ‘reservation’ of seats for the hitherto marginalized Scheduled Caste and Tribe groups, accounting for as many as 120 out of 543 seats in Parliament, and many more in state assemblies and the third tier of panchayats and municipalities, the Indian political arrangement has successfully modified and made more inclusive the principle of universal adult franchise based on the first-past-the-post system of choosing representatives. Over time, not just socially oppressed groups like Dalits and Tribals, but other marginalized groups like Yadavs, Kurmis, Jats and so on, have come to occupy a central and critical position in our electoral politics and governance. Finally, even erstwhile secessionist groups like the Mizos and Nagas, as also those others like the Naxalites who believed that ‘power flows out of the barrel of the gun’, have been persuaded to abandon the path of violence and participate in the electoral process.

An upshot of the above narrative is that Indian electoral democracy has successfully accommodated various social groups by providing them with constitutional rights based on ‘special reservations’ for ‘representation’ in the crucial centres of decision-making of the institutions of governance. Many historically ‘socially excluded’ groups today feel more empowered because they have got a share in power as a result of their special representation in the electoral political process. This description, however, captures only one part of the story.

But just what kind of social transformation has taken place because of the functioning of an electoral process based on universal adult franchise? It is routinely claimed that relatively politically apathetic Indians have not only become politically active, but also socially assertive and demanding because of the power of right to vote. The Indian voter is conscious of his power to elect and reject political representatives and parties and, for the first time in Indian history, ordinary Indians have been enabled to punish their political leaders. While true, this does appear to be a rather limited understanding of social change brought about by universal adult franchise in the social consciousness of the voters. Even as ordinary Indians have become more aware about their rights as citizens, the democratic project of fundamentally transforming society cannot be reduced to electoral participation because the social agenda of basic transformation demands an awareness about the fundamental issues facing society and an enhanced capability to liberate themselves from the inherited social categories of the past.

The Indian National Congress which nurtured the infant system of universal adult franchise not only followed mobilization strategies directed towards winning the support of multiple and diverse social groups during the elections, but also advocated programmes and policies for the benefit of different and distinct social groups. This particular and special social group-based political and electoral mobilizational strategy of all ‘bourgeois and peasant-based parties’ has over time given birth to compartmentalised and segmentary levels of awareness and social consciousness. This is possibly one reason why group-specific demands are raised by representatives of the people and group-specific benefits are distributed by the coalition of social classes and groups when they come to occupy political power.

An instructive example of this fragmented approach to social problems is the enthusiastic pursuit of policies concerning caste and sub-caste-based reservations by every ‘member of the ruling bloc’, across political parties. If there is any political consensus in India on any one issue among all the strata of the ruling bloc, it is on the policy of reservations of seats in parliamentary, legislative or panchayati raj institutions and for appointments to public institutions without underestimating the importance of the many struggles that different social groups have launched.

Can such a society pursue an all-India agenda of democratic social transformation for social equality? The answer is a big no. India continues to witness struggles around caste-based demands in part because our level of social consciousness has become co-terminus with caste or sub-caste based fragmented identities. Unsurprisingly, therefore, all-India united democratic struggles of the oppressed and exploited ‘rural and urban underclasses’ have failed to pose an effective challenge to the exploiting ruling bloc because the ‘underclasses’ are themselves completely fragmented on the basis of their identity-based levels of social existence around caste or sub-caste.

This has also helped the ruling classes and their political and bureaucratic governing classes to manage an exploitative and unequal society. Hence, the central paradox facing both theorists and practitioners of democracy: How do we explain the perpetuation of social inequalities in a democracy which claims, and rightly so, to have provided new opportunities to precisely those social groups who were always kept out of the power structure because of their history of social discrimination. Each one of us, liberal or Marxist, has to confront a basic question regarding who rules over India and how India is governed.

The different schools of liberal theory, irrespective of their inner conflicts and tensions, assert that only elected representatives of the people rule in India on the basis of an institutional system of governance based on checks and balances. Not only do we have a participatory system of democracy, the legitimacy of ‘rulers’ is based on the consent of the ruled, in part because of efforts to provide quota-based representation to all those social groups which needed special provisions and legal support for finding a berth in the centres of power.

Further, Indian democracy is responsive to multiple and varied interests of diverse groups. The result is a responsible and responsive democratic government which has followed a gradualist reformist social agenda for the amelioration of the living conditions of the needy and really vulnerable groups in society. Unfortunately, this rather simplistic analysis does not help identify the real rulers who actually exercise power in a democracy. Surely, it is not the case that the urban and rural underclasses elect representatives for the perpetuation of their misery or that the struggling poor masses of India exercise their right to vote for strengthening and solidification of capitalism and agrarian class exploitation and oppression?

It is undeniable that the electoral political system of democracy has transformed Indian society as also generated new levels of awareness among the mass of voters. This is a positive consequence of a competitive democratic political system. The negative side is that on the plea of providing new opportunities of representation to the marginal and socially excluded groups in society, the ruling classes have helped entrench a completely fragmented social system such that new levels of awareness and consciousness have become co-terminus with specific and distinct identity groups like caste or sub-caste. Given this social dialectic of Indian democracy, we should not be surprised that the rising levels of awareness have not translated into an all-India agenda of democratic struggles against the forces of oppression and suppression.

C.P. Bhambhri