Democracy in India

Indian democracy is overheating
By Kuldip Nayar
Dawn, February 10, 2007

IT is not India's economy which is reportedly overheating; it is democracy as well. There is some election or the other and preparations for it going on practically all year round. Four states are going to the polls this month and in April.

It was more or less the same number last year and there will be an equal number in 2008. These elections are in addition to the ones for corporations, municipalities and panchayats. The biggest is the Lok Sabha poll due in two years' time.

In a way, the country is engaged in voting every six months. True, it indicates the people's participation in choosing their representatives at every tier of governance. But it also means that the nation does not settle down to work. Too many polls are becoming a constant digression, besides being an inordinate expense. On an average, a candidate spends one crore rupees in a state election. The Lok Sabha constituency may cost around seven to eight times more. Government expenditure on polls is separate.

The country must ponder the suggestion made by Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat that elections to parliament and the state assemblies should be held simultaneously. This was the general practice three decades ago. Then politics crept in. The Congress-led centre dismissed the first communist government in Kerala. Under the constitution, an assembly has to meet every six months. This necessitated an election. A combination of opposition parties brought down the government in some other states. The Lok Sabha faced a similar situation less than a decade ago when the BJP government failed to get a vote of confidence.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's Principal Secretary, P.N. Haksar, a political person, claimed to have separated the state and parliamentary elections. His argument was that central issues should be discussed at the national level and state ones at the state level. But this did not happen as political parties did not want to do so. Political parties have their own set of prejudices and preferences which they articulate -- that is what they call the election plank.

The experience shows that local issues have come to dominate in one form or the other. The calibre of the candidates is increasingly coming into the picture. Yet caste and money are becoming big factors. The BJP is also playing the religious card. An appeal to Hindutva sentiments has won them municipalities in 10 cities, including the prestigious one in Mumbai. The UP, the biggest battleground, is already witnessing the role of religion. What has happened in Gorakhpur, a fairly big town in the state, is probably a curtain-raiser of what may take place until the state goes to the polls in April.

Still, India is a fascinating study in contrasts, not only in the field of economics but also in the social arena. Pluralism and parochialism live side by side in a society where tolerance is a way of life, but which is also marred by disturbances of a gruesome nature and along religious lines.

Only recently a Hindu priest got his 20-year-old adopted Muslim daughter to marry at a temple in the heart of Ahmedabad where hundreds of Muslims had been killed under a government-supported plan a few years ago. The wedding took place according to Muslim rites and there was namaz inside the temple. The bridegroom's father was so impressed that he asked the priest to look for spouses for his two daughters.

Yet India's pluralistic image is shattered every now and then. In the last few months, there has been a recurrence of communal violence at places like Jabalpur, Bangalore, Thrissur in Kerala and Mandsur in Madhya Pradesh. There is no doubt that the RSS is reviving its policy of dividing the country into Hindus and Muslims during the birth centenary of its fundamentalist leader Golwalkar. For example, the bomb attacks outside mosques, like the one at Nanded, are given out as “the only way of safeguarding Hindutva”. But to add to India's woes, Muslim fundamentalists have also begun emerging and indulging in violence, as was seen in Bangalore.

The purpose of the RSS-BJP combine is understandable. What Muslim fundamentalists are doing is beyond me. The vandalism at Bangalore to voice protest against the execution of Saddam Hussein was senseless. Such incidents indicate extra-territorial sentiments. They revive the sterile debate of whether a Muslim is first a Muslim and then an Indian or the other way round. So dangerous is this trend that its repercussions can be too terrible to comprehend.

India's claim that it has no indigenous terrorists has already been falsified. Whether the Mumbai blasts are responsible for this situation or whether the Gujarat killings have made some elements of Muslim youth desperate is not as relevant as the fact that a crop of local militants has come up. If this kind of militancy is going to seek connections abroad it would only play into the hands of the RSS and similar communal organisataions. It would kill the very spirit of nationalism and unity.

That Muslims face discrimination in employment, education and economic development is a reality as the Sachar Commission brought out in great detail. Despite bureaucratic opposition, some of the commission's recommendations are bound to be implemented, particularly when the ministry for minorities is headed by a Muslim. The dangerous development is that the prejudice of some Hindus is giving birth to a pernicious theory about Muslim identity. Once that takes root, the thesis of separation begins to gain credence. India has already paid the price in the shape of the killing of hundreds of thousands of Hindus and Muslims during partition and hatred continues to smoulder.

The Muslims should remember that the sufferings and indignities which they have undergone or are still undergoing have something to do with the government's acts of omission or commission. But to confuse the government with the country is suicidal. The government can be thrown out through the ballot box. But the harm done to the country is irretrievable.

Twelve centuries have passed since Islam came to India. It has as much claim on the soil of India as Hinduism. If Hinduism has been the religion of the people here for several thousands of years, Islam has also been there for more than 1,000 years. Hindus and Muslims are Indians who share deep bonds of brotherhood and nationhood. There is no other identity than being an Indian.

Tailpiece: The wife of an Indian diplomat posted in Pakistan during the days of the demolition of the Babri Masjid was requested by her gardener to bring him a small replica of the Taj Mahal when she next visited India. She was curious to know why he had made the request all of a sudden. The gardener said: “Who knows, you people may one day demolish even the Taj Mahal!”

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.