The Raisina Model

Title: The Raisina Model – Indian Democracy at 70

Author: Meghnad Desai

Publisher: Penguin Viking, 2017 (First)

ISBN: 9780670090136

Pages: 193

India’s transition from a colony of Britain to a sovereign republic was a smooth one. The constitutional process that began in 1919 continued through the Government of India Act of 1935 and served as a broad template to its Constitution. India’s independence was marked by large scale communal violence in which a million people died. Naturally, the longevity of the nascent republic was very much in doubt. A bunch of politicians with no worthwhile administrative experience were tasked with the twin Herculean tasks of drafting a Constitution and steering a newly independent nation with a wide diversity of languages, religions and customs. When we look back now after seven decades, the picture is not rosy, but it could have been much worse! India boasts of a vibrant democracy – troubled yet unbroken except for a short spell of Emergency under Indira Gandhi. The Indian democratic model is moulded on the Westminster system and since the visible symbols of Indian democracy stand on the Raisina Hill in New Delhi, this book creates the euphemism of ‘Raisina Model’ to describe the particular brew of democracy flourishing in the country. Meghnad Desai is an economist who left India in 1961 and taught at the London School of Economics, where he holds the position of Professor Emeritus. He was made Lord Desai of St Clement Danes in 1991 and awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2008. He has authored over 20 books and 200 articles.

On the lines of Churchill who declared that India was nothing more than a geographical term like the equator, Desai argues that India as an old civilization is a cultural idea, or a religious community, but it was not a territorial idea and definitely not a nation state till the time of independence. This begs the question that if not for a political entity, what did bind the country together. It was the Hindu society with its iron frame of the varna system, with Brahmin domination, which kept India together. In the absence of a single political authority, a decentralized system of social control was supervised by the Brahmins. India’s caste system was notorious for its graded inequality. The subtle differences of rank between the castes ensured that except for the people in the lowest rung of the ladder, there were at least a few others below them as far as any other caste was concerned. This false sense of incremental superiority conspired to keep the system intact. It was during the British era that the first hints of a real uplift of the backward communities came about. In this sense, India is having a paradoxical experience of being colonized by a colonizer that at the same time introduced ideas of change and equality. Desai praises the implementation of Mandal Report which conferred reservation in government jobs and educational institutions for the depressed classes as a groundbreaking event in the race for social justice. Anyway, he cautions that even with Mandal, the higher castes may remain ritually high but their economic advantage over the lower castes may shrink.

A very close inspection of Indian democracy is made in the book. In a significant shift from the Westminster model adopted by India, it reshaped the two-party ideal of the British into its own idea of a single dominant party and many smaller parties with regional, but not national presence. Desai mockingly calls this system ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ model. When Congress party was on the ascendant, all others were dwarfs. Now, as the BJP usurped that position, the Congress is becoming irrelevant in national politics. Desai identifies the influence of family relations in politics as a bloat to democracy. It is the bane of most parties except the BJP and the Communists, but the most glaring abuse is seen in the Congress which provided the template for others to emulate. Incompetent novices reach the top echelons riding on their father’s or husband’s credentials. The author claims that Mandal deepened the process of Indianizing the Westminster model. This put the Communists on the back foot as they never understood the intricacies of caste. Their role was taken away by the erstwhile socialists when Congress hegemony eventually weakened. Among all the minor differences that separate different parties, Desai observes that all Indian parties are statist, suspicious of free markets, wary of close association with big business, generous with entitlements and not overly concerned with fiscal responsibility (p.91).

Economic wellbeing goes hand in hand with a thriving democracy. Here, India was at a disadvantage right from 1947. The early demise of Sardar Patel who could have acted as a counterweight to fashionable socialism gave a clear hand to Nehru and his cronies. Nehru’s fiscal policy was more of a sign of economic innocence than serious aspiration. His advisors were also equally clueless about the way forward. Nehru planned doubling of national income in ten years. This mandated a 7.2 per cent annual growth rate which was never achieved till Narasimha Rao dismantled the entire edifice of the License-Quota-Permit raj in 1991. The sad part of the debacle was that both Nehru and his daughter Indira who succeeded him had no plans to achieve that elusive growth. While Nehru set the foundations of building up an economy from scratch, Indira set about destroying that structure by adopting ultra-leftist policies such as nationalization of commercial banks and putting in place the machinery of corruption. As a result, national income sadly lagged behind. Between 1600 and 1850, per capita income in India had zero rate of growth. For the next hundred years it grew at 0.5 to 1 per cent per annum. Doubling of income was planned in the second Five Year Plan which was prepared by the statistician P C Mahalanobis. He copied the five- year plan framework of USSR instituted in 1928 which itself was inspired by Karl Marx’s treatises. The focus of the plan was on manufacturing capital goods which was a necessity of USSR in 1928 as it was the target of international sanctions at that time and so wanted to build all the machinery domestically. That was not at all the case with India which could have easily imported them in the 1950s. Such a skewed funding denied investment in the wage goods sector and employment opportunities dwindled.

Having established democracy as the single most important factor that stemmed the trend of disintegration of post-independent India, the author analyses its future prospects. India’s road to salvation and ensuring a decent life to its inhabitants hinges on continuing to maintain the high economic growth rate achieved since 1991. The lack of a national narrative of independent India is lamented in the book. Having published this book in 2017, Desai takes a critical look at the Demonetisation program initiated in 2016 as part of the government’s crusade against black money. This issue was highly politicized which it should not have been. Desai terms the move as a ‘bold and timely one’. It didn’t destroy the currency as alleged by custodians of vested interests, but simply asked the people to convert the currency into bank deposits. The only problem was the delay in getting enough supplies of the new currency on time. It showed the inadequacy of the bureaucracy rather than the failure of the government. Taken as a whole, this book is a fitting tribute to Indian democracy celebrating its seven decades of glorious existence.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star