Page 2 of
2 BOOK
REVIEW The great
survivor India After
Gandhi by Ramachandra
Guha Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia
immediate votes or by whipping up
"nativistic" agendas against outsiders. When the
communists came to power in Bengal, Maoist
guerrillas prepared to use arms against the Indian
state on behalf of the oppressed rural peasantry.
Beheading of landlords and random attacks on
policemen inaugurated unsettling class warfare.
Weak state governments also failed to contain an
upsurge of communal violence
that badly scarred the country's secular image.
On the advice of P N Haksar, Indira Gandhi
presented herself as an arch leftist, marshalling
socialism and a large public sector as "weapons
for forging a united and integrated India (p
436)". The strategy paid handsome dividends in the
1971 elections. The clinical dismemberment of
Pakistan in the war for Bangladesh took Gandhi to
the pinnacle of Indian politics. From this height,
she drifted towards centralization of power,
toleration of corruption, and grooming of the
authoritarian heir apparent, Sanjay Gandhi.
Gandhian Jayaprakash Narayan mobilized
nationwide discontent against the regime that he
likened to the British colonial state. Guha views
Gandhi's reaction of imposing a dictatorial
emergency suspending all civil liberties as a
response "far exceeding the original provocation
(p 489)". Her justification for annulling
democracy, that "too much devolution was fatal and
I have to keep India together", did find
proponents in the middle and upper classes but not
among the bulk of the poor.
Guha explains
Indira Gandhi's decision to restore democracy in
1977 as partially a repayment of debt to foreign
critics who invoked her father's memory. A motley
alliance of right and left dislodged the Congress
in the historic election that ensued. Dramatic
rural assertion in the new Janata party government
was an outcome of the commercialization of
agriculture ("green revolution") and milk
production ("white revolution") that benefited
middle class and rich farmers. Janata's rule
witnessed a corollary sharpening of violent caste
conflict between the upwardly ascendant
"backwards" and the lowest-ranked Dalits.
Indira Gandhi's political renaissance was
aided by the accusation that Janata was against
the wretched of the Earth. Her party's resounding
win the 1980 elections owed not to ideological
appeal but to her "ability to rule and hold
together a government" in contrast to the
fractious Janata.
The early 1980s saw
volatile agitations for greater autonomy in Assam
and Punjab. Party rivalries bore the lion's share
in escalation of caste and communal violence, as
in the initial nurturing of Sikh fundamentalists
by the Congress. Indira Gandhi's posture as the
"saviour of the nation's unity against divisive
forces" belied such ugly realities. The brutal
counter-terrorist operation she ordered in Punjab
in 1984 was a case of "the army being used to
finish a problem created by the government (p
563)". The anti-Sikh riots abetted by Congress
politicians after Indira Gandhi's assassination
unleashed a secessionist war in Punjab that
threatened another partition of the country.
Rajiv Gandhi's record-breaking election
victory in 1984 was achieved by portraying the
Congress as the only bulwark against forces of
secession. Sadly, he committed fatal blunders like
pandering to Muslim fundamentalists and Hindu
chauvinists, and sanctioning an ill-fated military
intervention in Sri Lanka. Ridden with corruption
scandals, the Congress lost the 1989 elections to
a 1977-style opportunistic coalition.
Sensing the rising influence of
intermediate castes, the new government
implemented a controversial reservation scheme
that polarized society in an unprecedented manner.
New caste-based regional parties arrived on the
scene not only to "de-center" politics but also to
divide the country. Through the 1990s, violent
caste wars dotted the countryside from Haryana to
Tamil Nadu, with Bihar emerging as the touchstone.
Jihadi terrorism and intolerance claimed fresh
victims among Kashmiri Hindus and went on to
endanger public security across the country. India
was also rocked by a succession of religious riots
and pogroms, courtesy electoral dividends accruing
to the Bharatiya Janata Party. This was unlike
politicians of Nehru's day who worked to close
social cleavages rather than deepening them for
self-interest.
Since 1989, coalition
governments have been the norm in national
politics. Guha associates it with the
fragmentation of the party system on the basis of
identity. The change is a sign of "widening of
democracy", since it gives different regions and
groups a stake in the system. The downside of
coalition politics is that cabinet ministers now
"think more of the interests of their party of
their state, rather than of India as a whole (p
656)". The writ of the center does not run as
authoritatively in the states as before and
caste-based parties lead the dossier on
criminalization. "The lawmakers of India are its
most regular lawbreakers" (p 680).
Free
market-driven economic growth, the 1998 nuclear
tests and victory in war over Pakistan in 1999
released a surge of patriotic pride as the
millennium approached, forwarding avowals that
India had finally "arrived" as a world power. In a
way, this new assertiveness countered the
dissipation of "Indianness" in domestic politics.
Beneath the self-congratulatory gloss, though, 26%
of the population lives below the poverty line.
Between 1995 and 2005, at least 10,000 destitute
farmers committed suicide. As income inequalities
intensify, the economist Amartya Sen worries that
"half of India will look like California, the
other half like sub-Saharan Africa (p 700)".
Why is India a great survivor mocking at
skeptics of the past and present? Guha credits it
to the existence of liberal freedoms and
institutions like the professional civil service,
the apolitical military, the English language, a
common market, Hindi films, and the cricket team.
All of them generate spunk for India's oneness. A
unique patriotism, not necessarily tied to
primordial identities, bolsters the overall
structure. Although Guha attempts scholarly
detachment from his subject, he himself
unconsciously manifests this nationalist creed. A
concerned intelligentsia must hence be added to
the list of cementing factors that keep India
alive.
India After Gandhi: The History
of the World's Largest Democracy by
Ramachandra Guha. New York, Harper Collins, 2007.
ISBN: 978-0-06-019881-7. Price: US$34.95, 893
pages.
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about
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