The state is not what one thinks it is

Rescuing the liberal state from failure requires engagement with traditional institutions,not their ostracism

The biggest challenge the world faces today is not climate change, Chinese aggressiveness or ethnic or religious conflict, but the regular and steady collapse and/or emasculation of institutions. From states to local bodies to the judiciary and religious, tribal, caste and community groups, few institutions — whether modern or traditional — are able to act for the common good. From the United Nations and supra-national bodies like the European Union or the World Trade Organization, not one functions with any amount of efficacy. What is left of law and order is being wrecked further by politicians and non-state actors. The US has gone to the extent of delegitimising some of its police forces by defunding them.

Countries want out as much as in when it comes to supra-national institutions (Brexit, Warsaw Pact); monetary authorities have failed (which is why we see such economic disruption and growing belief in non-state currencies like cryptos); and the judiciary has failed almost everywhere except in small countries with a common ethnicity (like the Nordics). The rise of cult-like leaders in many countries is a desperate move by citizens to see if strongmen can do somewhat better than their failing institutions. It is not going to work, but the emergence of strong leaders is a symptom, not the malaise itself.

In many ways, we should have expected this, for the liberal promise of the state and state-led institutions being invested with the sole rights to violence and law-making in return for protecting individual human rights was always set up for failure. This is because we have defined the word “state” to largely conform to the Westphalian idea of it, which itself was built on the wrong premise of nations being made of only one kind of people living in a defensible geography. But this has never been the case, as people of all kinds move to all kinds of places, impacting demography and exacerbating social tensions. Today, many European states have realised that there are no-go zones where even their police cannot enter, something that the last German Chancellor Angela Merkel herself openly acknowledged. The British grooming scandals happened because the police were told that going after Pakistani gangs to protect teenage girls was somehow politically incorrect. The British police delegitimised themselves by failing to protect their own young women.

Illustration by Binay Sinha

The reality is many kinds of state — which we can loosely define as any institution with some authority over individuals — exist, and state does not mean just government, legislature, judiciary or law enforcement. It has to include all institutions that exert authority on the individual, and whether we consider that authority legitimate or illegitimate is immaterial. By this definition, the family is a micro-state, for it exercises some control over a few individuals included in the definition of family; the tribe and community also constitute a state, for they influence how their members behave. Corporate institutions are quasi states, for they can enforce behaviours among employees, vendors, and distributors, even if their influence is purely economic and restricted to workplace relationships. Google, Facebook (now Meta), Twitter and Microsoft are cyber states, and often they exert more influence and know more about their “citizens” than the regular state authorities do. The criminal mafia is also state, for it has the power to enforce some of its diktats over specific people at some times, never mind the existence of a legitimate police force. For its own effectiveness, the police tend to have some links to criminal groups.

The liberal project was always doomed to fail at some point for it tried to — and, for the most part, succeeded in its effort — destroy the legitimacy of every other institution because they had not been reformed, or were seen as instruments of oppression.

That traditional institutions were oppressive to a greater or lesser degree is important to acknowledge, but using state power to destroy them completely makes state power itself illegitimate after a point. If all that is left is the state and the individual, it follows that the state will at some point gain so much power as to threaten individual rights itself. This is manifesting in non-state actors threatening the state, and the state, allegedly to protect citizens, demanding more powers to invade privacy and make laws that would earlier not have been countenanced.

The question is, can we lift ourselves back from the deep hole we have dug for ourselves? The answer depends on many factors, and especially the willingness of the liberal elite, who think they have a monopoly on wisdom and knowledge, to acknowledge and correct mistakes. They think poorly of family, tribal loyalties, caste-based social capital, religious authority, and other such factors. They want us to accept their definitions of state and individual rights, their definitions of free speech and freedom of religion. Common sense tells us that free speech exercised without restraint can only lead to social tensions (example, the Haridwar meeting of sadhus); absolute freedom of religion means the endless right to convert others, and not about deepening the individual’s search for higher truths. It needs no great wisdom to tell us that religions that want to expand their footprint can only do so by eviscerating others, and this cannot but lead to social tensions and violence, which is what we are seeing in India and many other parts of the world. 

The way out is to legally build some legitimacy back into traditional institutions and subject some freedoms of individuals to their rules and internal regulations. The state can always retain overriding powers over traditional institutions, and individuals can always be given a right to appeal over the heads of these traditional forms of authority and given access to non-denominational and secular laws.

A good experiment to begin would be for the state to start using traditional institutions to govern those who owe allegiance to the latter, and not by pretending that they have no legitimacy. The social capital that exists within such traditional institutions, from religious authorities to khap panchayats, must be used for the greater good by making them more accountable and self-regulating. The state is more likely to catch criminals and terrorists if the communities they spring from know they will lose powers if they don’t bring their own deviants to justice.

The bottom line: Conferring a limited form of legitimacy to traditional institutions is one way to bring society, nations and super-states back to reality with genuine accountability from both state and its new partners. The state cannot have a monopoly on people’s lives.

The writer is editorial director, Swarajya magazine