What is India?

[Humanoid]

Alright, so we have possible reason that the national debate has not caught, politicians with vision (we'll come back to this one.


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Is that good enough? more years "chaalega"?? Is such an attitude compatiblel with golabl aspirations?

One of the things for good or bad, the Englishers left the sub-continent is this business of "muddling through" - I suggest it's not good enough, it is a vastly different world out there than the Englishers knew - however; whether they were mudling through or not, the Englishers came up with English solutions.



Two things - In the lead article, you will note the academician refers not to the communist party by to traditions of China -- and I was pointing to this when I suggested that having looked East and West for precedent, that the Indian will have little opion but to look at their own tradition, to fashion a policy framework from within their own tradition.


Humanoid is mistaken with regard to Communist party's role in developing such a framework - it is from within Chinese tradition - It is a useless stereotype, this business about the all knowing all see communist party - China is China, not communist or Marxist -- Also if you think the intellectuals of China are constrained, see a thread I have about Chinese intellectuals and Ideas on th China board -- for me the most noeworthy thung about the lead article i that thread is how the Chinese have seemingly escaped or discarded the notion that style of governance has to be Western only - they have nt discarded the notion of representative governance, but the notion of conflict as a cause or mover of government action.

our policy framework (right or wrong) is possible when we have a single majority party who can rule the country without any opposition since independence...
and R you trying to disregard Communist Party's role in developing China's policy framework... the style of Governance is not western for sure... but i would like to know how u define the Chinese style of governance.. for me it is fast, efficient, and regimented.. .the whole country apparently works like a well oiled machine.. ..have u seen a single dharna... strike, micchil out of China... ? no .. ..
All I can say end of the day.. it is true that.. India is full of inconsistencies and contrast... and at times i get really frustrated..to see so much of corruption and inconsistencies ..all around.. then I look back all around me... and try to do an objective comparison....

United States.. Still the messiah.. of free economy has dig itself into such a big hole ..that we are not sure they will at all remain as a world power in coming days..what's the reason..? Greed, Corruption on a Trillion dollar scale...

China... one after another product re-call..., No religious freedom, lack of properly functioning media.. ... I can keep on going..

There is no free lunch... we India may suck at certain things...and there is no doubt about that... but we also sub-consciously enjoy too much of democracy ..which is hampering .. an unilateral single minded determination...

I mean no point in going through the same points again and again... I believe it is beyond anyone's doubt that India is not at all perfect .. or trouble free and i doubt it will ever be.. it will just be into this critical equilibrium as it is now.. and it will continue to chug along
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[muse]

our policy framework (right or wrong) is possible when we have a single majority party who can rule the country without any opposition since independence...

It's not the Indian way - forget about it.

China a well oiled machine??? No, no, not at all, sir. Travel to China, they are a exceptionally friendly peoples - you see ijmages of disciplined Chinese, reality is that Chinese are very independent minded and very difficult to control, in other words they are ASIANS.

It is not communism but Chinese Confusionism (Gung Fuo) that is at work here.

India is also awakening, but there is a danger here too, ignorance and chauvanism and it's traveling companion arrogance, must be recognized for what they are -- we have seen a kind of "pop" understanding of Indian tradition -- it is ancient, complex and ASIAN in the sense of values.

In my opinion, once there is a renewed interest to move beyond the "pop" Indian inheritance, the discourse will fashion or articulate a vision rooted in that inheritance.

The case of India is more complex, If you are interested read Jared Diamond - in particular how China came to be china - - see, China has been homogenus for very very long, because it was united way, in the past, and the sense of Chinese is reflective of that -- The case of India is different, the only homogeneity we understand is this "pop" version of the inheritance organized by the Swami viveknanda - The Swami did a great service, but he essentially had to operate in a unique context, his task was not just for the Indian but the farangi -- now the farangi is out of the picture and of course the picture is changed -- added to this dimension is the Muslim experience(s) in India.

As you can see simply talking about this framework, awakens us to exactly how much work is ahead -- refer once again to the lead article, you will see that the Confusion idea to which the author refers is understood all over China - a society at ease with itself --- and seeking to promote harmony, means therfore at peace with neighbors --- Are you following??? Ishara Kaafi?

R you trying to disregard Communist Party's role in developing China's policy framework

No but it's main role is tow fold - facilitator of the confusion ethic an executor of policy -- communism, marxism does not have the same appeal as the confusion ideals and values do, the communist paryy recognizes this and has used this advantage.

See, every society has it's own answers, ethic and values are essentially Asian, but the form, the styles have to be different, they arise from societies that have similar, not same, experiences.

we India may suck at certain things

Even if true, it's irrevelant - what matters is to put aspirations into operation, to think it through and proceed.

 

[muse]

In earlier posts, courageous Indian interlocutors have offered a heart felt and inspiring view when they have suggested that india to date awaits visionary leadership what sees India as a a single entity and does not need the politics of vote banks, ethnic and communal dfifferences, a New Work offers a similar view and suggests a possible direction and the danger of continuing to do business as usual:


BOOK REVIEW: India unready for next paradigm —by Khaled Ahmed

Indian Politics and Society since Independence: Events, Processes and Ideology;
By Bidyut Chakrabarty;
Routledge 2008; Pp.243; Price £24.99;
Available at bookstores in Pakistan


Strangely, it is the anti-British nationalist Congress that retained much of the British Raj in its law-making after Independence and not Pakistan that managed to disfigure most of the humane laws bequeathed by imperialism to India. Nehru felt no self-consciousness when he adopted the American motto unity in diversity for India and retained much of the social reforms of the Raj while aspiring to a centralised state through which he could realise his socialist dream.

Author Chakrabarty’s book is a positive assessment of Indian politics but he does note that India’s 1950 Constitution retained some 250 clauses from the 1935 Government of India Act despite the Congress’s stridently anti-British stance as it competed with the Muslim League. In recent years, India’s reliance on such draconian laws as TADA and POTA are also a borrowing from the Raj legacy. Pakistan simply put the Blasphemy Law in the statute book to outdo India without aping the Raj. By Islamising the Penal Code, Pakistan concocted a more lethal punch than India’s tame legal mixture.

Colonialism, nationalism and democracy have driven India since 1947, the first as something to imitate covertly, the second to create a uniform mind by opposing the first, and the third to create consensus in a country home to hundreds of identities full of violent potential. In all the three processes India has succeeded in the eyes of the world, but more importantly in the eyes of India’s poor masses who are still hard done by. Pakistan has been more ‘revolutionary’ because of its deception of Islamic-utopian transformation; and its poor masses are dangerously dissatisfied.

The book has interesting insights on the trend of coalition governments which it finds in line with the Gandhian concept of swaraj, preferring ‘the relaxed and chaotic plurality of the traditional Indian life’ to ‘the order and homogeneity of the European nation-state’. The one-party politics that lasted till 1977 was the Nehruvian prelude to an order closer to the Indian genius. Nehru took all the big decisions unhampered by any credible opposition. Today no big decisions can be made easily because a number of parties in the ruling coalition have to agree. But why should India as a status quo hegemon in the region worry?

In 1977 it was time for India to have a bipartisan system. Post-emergency circumstances made it possible for Janata Dal to make the breakthrough against the Congress even though it collapsed in two and a half years because of internal quarrels, to which the Indian political genius is much given, and let the Congress sweep back in 1980. In 1989 Congress rebel VP Singh rode back with Janata Dal only to fall again on the Mandal Commission reform, making way for a breakaway Dal to rule on. The Congress too made its way back, but after the exit of the Narasimha Rao government in 1996, the coalitions have alighted on India’s political system.

The beginning was not easy. After all, the state was being asked to decentralise power and politics. Four coalition governments in a row fell before their term. The first BJP-led coalition lasted only 13 days. Then came the 13-party United Front government of Deve Gowda supported by the Congress. This was a post-poll coalition and came apart when Congress challenged Gowda over failure to sort out the Cauvery River dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. But it was rescued mid-river by a new government under IK Gujral. This too fell in 1998 when the Congress withdrew support. India was getting ready for a real coalition culture by first experiencing the limits of instability.

The next phase was remarkable in that the BJP stopped thinking of itself as monolithic, which meant seeking pre-poll arrangements with 13 other parties and that meant watering down its overly communal outlook. In 1998, it emerged as the largest single party in the 12th Lok Sabha with 182 seats. India had become bipartisan. But this government too fell when a component AIADMK broke ranks and left, but not before establishing the tradition of seeking a pre-poll arrangement for the coalition to materialise after elections. The Congress too went into it realising the days of ruling India alone were now over.

The 13th general election in 1999 was therefore a watershed event. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government lasted its full five years. Now there were two pan-Indian political parties able to rule only through pre-poll coalition politics. In 2004, the Congress made it back to power riding United Progressive Alliance (UPA) with a bunch of leftwing partners unwilling to go all the way with Congress’s awakening to the economic alchemy of global capitalism. Strangely, the monolith of the Congress was broken by Emergency under Ms Gandhi and the party’s ‘plebiscitary politics’; the monolith of Hindutva of the BJP was broken by the exigencies of coalition politics (p.157).

India has looked deceptively chaotic to Pakistan but in fact its trajectory has been fairly normal as a democratic polity trying to find its own principles. Pakistan on the other hand pressed a revolutionary Islamic content into its small challenger state’s intense and self-destabilising nationalism, perhaps not knowing that jihad in asymmetrical war with India would prove to be the state’s final dispersal. India became the comfortable and ‘satisfied’ hegemon of the region that refused to become revisionist against China after losing Aksai Chin, and is now doing $20 billion worth of trade with it. Pakistan is being pushed to face the same option of abandoning its challenger state role but is stubbornly looking the other way.

India is better placed than ever before to deal with an internally harassed Pakistan. New Delhi has the capacity to comprehend the psychological rather than strategic constraints of Pakistan but is for the first time unable to act in its own interest. Coalition politics will not allow statesmanship and its big paradigmatic decisions. And Pakistan with its nuclear weapons self-consciously tucked under its arms is least able to see India as it is. Bureaucracies flourish under such conditions of political drought and the problems go on snowballing. *