India should hold its horses, historian Ramachandra Guha tells ADITI PHADNIS
You cite 10 reasons why India will not and should not become a superpower. How did you get the idea?
Let me explain the background. In 2008, I was at a dinner in honour of the director of the United Nations Development Programme and around the dinner table were entrepreneurs who, in a small way, had contributed to changing the lives of many.
There was a young man who sold solar-powered lamps in Chitradurga that solved the lighting problems of small market places. An entrepreneur had developed a mobile phone that provided information to farmers about mandi prices of commodities. There was an IT professional from Silicon Valley who had returned home to computerise land records in Karnataka. They were all people who were doing unusual, challenging work, but were exasperated. And the source of their exasperation was the same — the government of India.
I did a little extrapolation and wondered that if the year had been 1948 and there had been a similar dinner, what would the conversation have been? In 1948, the mood was dismal and gloomy. The undivided Communist Party of India was holding a secret conclave where the Politburo passed a resolution authorising armed insurgency against the Indian state because it felt Nehru’s government was a puppet of the big bourgeoisie. PC Joshi’s view was that Nehru’s government needed to be supported. But BT Ranadive was fired by the Chinese Communist Party which was on the verge of capturing power. Ranadive believed India should follow the Chinese model. His line won and in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, the revolutionary forces of the Left were being put down by the forces of the state. There was a feeling in 1948 that India was going down the tubes.
In 2008, the feeling was that India is ready to take on the world.
In 1948, the view was if the government doesn’t help us out, we are finished.
In 2008 and 2009, it is: If only the government would leave us alone.
Is the government standing in the way of India becoming a superpower?
Actually, there are ten reasons why India should not/cannot become a superpower. Look around you. In every community, whether it is Christians, Jains, Sikhs or Hindus, liberal and moderate elements are on the defensive. In 1948, it was the effect of Partition that India was trying to cope with. Suspicion, paranoia and violence continue.
Left extremism in the form of the Naxalite movement, a result of geography but also of social and political forces owing to the continued dispossession and deprivation of tribal people in India, is on the rise. Corruption and corrosion of the power centre in India as a result of political parties functioning as family firms rather than open, transparent political systems — and I include most political parties in this category — cause sterile debates. There is a spectacular decline of public institutions, the judiciary, police, universities, civil services. We used to have great teachers. Where are they? I know we take pride in our bureaucracy but …
The increasing gap between the rich and the poor, which is particularly manifest through suicides by farmers, is another reason. This is a phenomenon that has become pervasive only in the last 10-15 years, perhaps because there is expectation of a ‘good life’ that did not exist before. Earlier, caste, village and community used to shore those who were facing economic distress. That kind of social security is slowly disappearing.
Environmental degradation at the local level, which is impacting people’s lives in very real ways, whether in the form of massive depletion of underground aquifers, chemical contamination of soil, death of rivers, loss of species, etc, threatens our country. And related to this is the apathy of the media in covering issues of rising income inequality and environmental degradation.
Political fragmentation manifests itself as coalition governments at both central and regional levels, which makes it very difficult to forge sustainable long-term policies in realms of health, education, etc. Multi-party coalitions also encourage rent-seeking.
India’s unresolved border disputes, especially in Kashmir and the North-East (Nagaland and Manipur), indicate there are parts of India that are not comfortable with being part of India.
India’s increasingly unstable neighbourhood is another serious impediment to its ambitions to become a superpower.
This is not a ranking in order of importance. I think we should judge ourselves by our own standards. India should not seek to be more dominant but less discontented with itself.
I don’t agree with most of what you have said. The 1940s and 1950s were not periods of unalloyed gloom but of great excitement because people felt they had a project in which they were involved. The films of the era testify to this. Is India discontented? Or ambitious? Families and communities are not supportive, they are oppressive. And what we have to fear the most is feudalism and cronyism, not the state. And in the list of things that are holding India back, we need to add two more — paan and everything associated with it and the loudspeaker and everything associated with it.
I think one must distinguish between the late 1940s and the early 1950s. In the aftermath of Partition and the Communist insurrection, there was a real fear that India would break up further.
But the Centre held, the fundamentalists of the Left and the Right were tamed, the princely states were integrated. Once the Constitution came into effect in January 1950, there was more optimism about the fate of the nation, consolidated by the successful holding of the first general elections in 1952.
You are right about feudalism and cronyism, but these of course also operate (and to deadly effect) within and through the state. Finally, of your two additional reasons, I wholly agree that the loudspeaker is an abomination, but I do love paan!
