India, Democracy and Political future
With India going more and more into dysfunction, paralysis and failure, various opinions have emerged on the current state of India. Some blame India's failure on drifting away from principles of Gandhian/Nehruvian vision. Some blame it on endemic institutional corruption that has slowly hollowed out the country. Others blame it on religious extremism, casteism and nepotism. Before getting into problems in India's political system, i look at conditions that shaped India's political system at its inception.
Founding fathers of Independent India - Nehru, Gandhi etc grew up in age of colonialization which significantly shaped their thinking. Gandhi, a disciple of non-violence, believed that dialogue & reason alone are sufficient to solve world problems. With reasoning and rationality, people can be convinced to become harmonious. He envisioned India as rural village society where everyone will live in peace without exploitation of colonial forces and under the protection of fundamental rights. Nehru etc believed that an independent India, where Colonial masters won't be plundering country's resources, will become prosperous with its own Democratic system.
Colonial dictators exploited India for more than 200 years. To repel colonialists, founding fathers incited populist independence movements demanding end of colonial rule. After decades of oppression by colonial masters, there was great temptation of empowering people by giving them the privilege of electing their political leaders through universal suffrage. The constitution was thus formulated with universal suffrage and parliamentary democracy as main political engine of India's political system. Around this main engine, other institutions and governance structure was built.
Indian founding fathers thinking can be summarized as -
1. Founding fathers were populists and anti imperialists. These concepts shaped much of their formulation of Indian state. They believed in populist rationality. Society (after freed from colonial imperialists) will naturally find its road map to progress. Gandhi believed that humanism and empathy are prebuilt into humans and society, and appeal of these ideas can solve anything.
2. They unequivocally believed in the tenets of Democracy. Since colonialists have long exploited the people, now people must be made equitable partners in governance by giving them the populist power of universal suffrage. Answers to India's ills are in meticulously designed Indian constitution and solutions only have to be realized and acted upon to address challenges.
3. They believed that Democratic system will refine and improve itself. Even if pre-requisites of Democratic political system were non existent at the time, these pre-requisites will somehow emerge post-facto and generate a feedback channel into the system to reinforce and strengthen it. Democracy solves its own problems.
4. They believed anti-colonialism was central problem of global power politics. They believed that UN which emerged in post WW2 is a protector of international security. A dawn of global rationality is emerging in post-colonial world and military force & defense policy is not of much significance. Dialogue, diplomacy, mediation are the main tools of international policy.
Today, much of activists circles and reform seekers ascribe to thinking of founding fathers which can be summarized as -
- People on individual level are rational agents. People are swayed by healthy reasoning, rationality and self preservation. They thus take rational decisions & make reasonable choices.
- Populist rationality - Society take rational decisions on informed reasoning & logic. Society if left to natural Democratic process, will lead to prosperity and betterment of itself. The problem in society arises due to hindrance in Democratic exercise, lack of transparency and lack of deliberation.
- Founding fathers of India (Nehru, Gandhi, Ambedkar etc) fully understood the challenges of India. They created a constitution & political system to address all challenges. There is no alternative to Democracy. The political system on constitutional spirit is self correcting.
The reforms proposed by Indian activists involves amending norms, procedural exercises of parliamentary processes & institutional reforms. Through better norms and more transparency, the political system is believed to be perfectible.
Much of the analysis on India is based on Mechanistic thinking. Mechanistic thinking is analysis of bits and bobs of system - how various moving parts of system work and learning the behavior of these parts, then trying to diagnose the problem in the system and arrive at possible remedies. Mechanistic thinking ascribes to belief that bits & bobs have individual properties and system derives its properties from the sum of these moving parts. The system in this case is India's existing political system as created post independence. Bits & bobs of this system can be described as national institutions, parliamentary process, political parties, existing political norms and formalism etc. Focus of most analysts is on these bits & bobs, and how they've become dysfunctional. For example, the dysfunction of parliamentary process, the corruption of govt institutions, lack of transparency in lawmaking etc. Through the study of these various facets, the analysts derive conclusions & reasons behind India's current state.
Among activists are the proponents of parliamentary sanctity - passing of laws by parliamentarians with openness, deliberations and public scrutiny. Activists complain on why laws are not discussed in Parliamentary committees and why parliamentary debates on laws are not conducted in proper spirit. Lack of deliberation, discussions and transparency is attributed to bad policies.
Activists fail to grasp causality of bad lawmaking. Their logic is, since the laws are passed without consultation, deliberation and formal procedures, the laws turn out to be failures. So bad process or lack of proper parliamentary process is impediment to good law making and sound public policies. The reality is different. Today's lawmakers are such incompetent people that they cannot do any constructive deliberation and thoughtful law making. Asking lawmakers to create a policy through deliberation is like asking bunch on monkeys to collectively solve Riemann hypothesis.
The laws today are formulated by career bureaucrats, advisory institutions etc (most of them are corrupt & centered around PMO) with influence and input from special interest groups (corporate think tanks, financiers etc). The expediently passing of laws through parliament is a formality as executive & party whip gives instructions to monkeys to vote yes. In case Govt wants additional votes, carrot & stick is used to buy additional votes from opposition lawmakers as well.
Laws created out of deliberation aren't any great either. Take example of GST Tax system. Formulated through many years (possibly decades) of deliberation by central as well as state lawmakers across party lines including previous & current governments. It even required a constitutional amendment which all political parties approved to with advance knowledge of new tax system. The end result of years of deliberation turned out to be a bungled and regressive tax system. Take example of various rounds of reservation laws of India. Mindless and futile populist exercises carried out by all political parties for vote bank politics and approved in parliament through bipartisanship.
The UIDAI laws which destroyed the right to privacy are also bipartisan laws. Actually a pet project of old regime was later adopted and nurtured by current regime into a fully exploitative system. Similarly, the failed PPP policies (public private partnership) was originally a brainchild of old regime, later adopted by the next regime, are also a product of bipartisan political consensus. We can get into countless public policies on economy, taxes, regulatory & institutional structures, social issues etc of past years that were made in parliament and various states, formulated with deliberation, but which are nonsensical and regressive. For example, the entire tax system and fiscal commission model of India prepared throughout present and past decades is a giant blunder. Why this is not surprising?
You have seen the intellect of our lawmakers on display. They can be seen spouting obscenities and vile insults on rival politicians in their rallies, parliament proceedings or television interviews. But this is actually their civilized behavior. Their real behavior is often not on public display. These lawmakers (MPs, MLAs, MLCs etc) are actually criminals - Mafias, gangsters, killers, rapists, fanatics, anti-social elements etc. Political office is just a shield to run their criminal enterprises with impunity. Lawmakers run numerous rackets - money laundering, land grabbing, real estate, extortion, plundering of national assets, black marketing, amassing illegal wealth through political connections and corruption. In last parliament, roughly half of the parliamentarians had known criminal records. Mind you that known political reality is just a tip of the iceberg. The real criminalization of politics and the scope of scams is largely unknown from public knowledge.
The activists also have in mind the idea of pre-legislative consultation in law making. Here also activists employ fallacy of composition and projective thinking. They think that since they themselves have good policy ideas, they will get a voice in consultation for policy making. The constructive policy input from liberal activists will lead to better law making. But this is not the political reality. For example, there also exist right wing activists and think tanks with their own policy advice which is diametrically different from what Liberal activists have in mind. If Govt mandates pre-legislative input for policy making, the right wing plebeians, activists, think tanks etc will still capture a stronger voice in policy making.
In fact, special interest groups and right wing activists have long been injecting ideas to create regressive policies like on Kashmir, anti-minority laws, economy, Privatization etc. People are familiar with institutions like Vivekananda institute, ORF, Sanatan sansthas, RSS etc that inject policy ideas into Govt. These groups eagerly wait to be part of pre-legislative consultation. Deliberation and consultation does happen in present system but majority of actors participating in this exercise are corrupted. Today, liberal activists want to have a deliberation of policy ideas for better lawmaking. Are they prepared to sit on a common table with plebeians of Sanatan Sansthas, Patanjali or Vivekenanda foundation to deliberate constructive ideas?
Activists mostly employ projective thinking, fallacy of composition and mechanistic thinking in political analysis. Their faith in populist rationality is based on projective thinking. Since they have sound knowledge and good ideas about national affairs, they generalize the existence of similar ideas among the rest of the society as well. So all that is needed for better country is exercise of Democracy which will generalize good ideas into national governance, and better formalistic norms to keep certain checks and balances. Activists view world from their projective lens and subjectivity. They view virtues of rationality, morality and value system in society from a reflection of their own psyche. This blinds them from objective reality of the world. The concepts of morality and rationality are purely arbitrary concepts.
Liberals/activists want to become stakeholders in constructive policy making. They think they have good policy proposals which needs to be injected into governance. Through some parliamentary process reforms, transparency and pre-legislative scrutiny, liberals think they can get some scrutinizing role to shape policy. But present political system doesn't have any space to integrate liberal activists or any other circle of constructive thinkers in policy making. More importantly, the liberal circles are just a small minority in present sociopolitical arena and if equal representation of actors is to be believed, liberal share of ideas will get minuscule weightage in overall system where most actors are reactionary and irrational.
Most activists remain mechanistically bound by the tenets of India's foundational structure. Ideas for political reforms are developed under the bounds of existing system and reform ideas are tested if they align with omniscient founding fathers' principles. Activists also believe in consensus building and deliberation in parliament. Theoretically, this is not a bad idea if parliamentarians were philosophers with healthy policy ideas in general. Through deliberation of these general ideas, they can be further refined into better forms for practical implementation. But we know the basic nature of politicians - gross incompetence and Psychological malignancy. They have no constructive ideas and don't have any inclination to find any constructive ideas. Much of the sociopolitical forces that shape Govt policies are regressive and irrational as well.
On state level, there's little hope in building consensus. States are divided on vast economic, sociopolitical & cultural differences. The cow belt states (traditionally regressive & socially backward) have cultural, economic & intellectual differences with Southern states (relatively progressive). Northern states are already subsidized by economy of Southern states. A better formulation of power structure is increasing the parliamentary seats of economically competitive southern states (like Kerala). But no amount of deliberation can convince Northern states for this reconfiguration of parliament. Even among southern states, there's not much consensus. For example, they could not deliberate upon meaningful water sharing agreement even after years of negotiations (Tamil Nadu & Karnataka). Similarly, other interstate water wars are going in since decades and no amount of deliberations among state political governments have produced much results (dispute between Punjab & Haryana, Haryana & Delhi).
On societal level, the consensus building and deliberation is a hopeless cause. Some activists of Gandhian strand believe they can arouse the reasoning power among masses by spreading awareness. Indian society is fractured into many factions on lingual, cultural, religious, casteist lines. Many of these social factions are hostile to one another because of their social backwardness. Free from intellect, reasoning and logic, society collectively demonstrates mass psychosis with strong propensity for violence. Majoritarian religious group demand domination over ethnic minorities. Caste leaders and youth do riots over quota reservation. Farmers, comprising of biggest chunk of workforce, agitate over endless loan waivers & subsidies. Then there's turf wars of OCGs - the political Mafias for control over territories. With such fragmentation and polarization of society, any meaningful consensus building is hardly possible.
There are more reform ideas by activists. Some activists regard electronic voting machines as the source of all evil. These activists are firm believers in populist rationality, and believe that paper ballots are solution to present dysfunctional system. These activists believe that populist rationality guarantees that bad political leaders cannot arise. Only way bad politicians have arrived is through rigging of voting machines. But can vast majority of uninformed and uneducated population suddenly become educated & intelligent if EVMs are replaced with ballot paper? The substitution of electronic voting machines by ballot papers won't alter the social-psychological dynamics and intellect of society.
The society being primitive and ignorant will continue to operate in its natural state. It will continue to be attracted to manipulative criminal politicians and continue to vote for them whether through pressing a button on EVM or through piece of paper in a ballot box. A system which is structurally flawed cannot function productively even if its operated in a transparent manner. Undoubtedly, the electronic voting has risks of manipulation but the bigger flaws with political system is on higher level of sociopolitical dynamics. We will get to societal irrationality in some detail below.
Looking at the outside world - Political instability in other nations
The crisis in Indian Democracy is not an anomaly. In last decade, there's increasing instability in other major Democracies as well. In America, the populism has given rise to Trump - the most dangerous and most unstable man in current world. There's something very wrong with American Democracy which has given rise to such a pathologically unstable leader and MAGA movement. On other side of Atlantic, there's decimation of UK politics under five consecutive reactionary PMs. UK is trapped in permanent decline under highly incompetent right wing govt but elections are just unable to reverse course. The populist catastrophe of Brexit, the nearly missed greater catastrophe of Scotland secession are among the high low points of modern British politics. Observing the current British Parliament and behavior of British MPs in recent times, they now appear to be as imbecilic as the failed leaders of their former colonies. Britain, the mother of all parliaments is reduced to as dysfunctional as parliaments of some 3rd world state. There's also rise of populist right wing parties & destructive movements in Europe.
In US, the rise of MAGA politicians have paralyzed American parliament similar to what's common in failed 3rd world countries (1, 2). Extreme partisanship and political fighting means they cannot pass simple budget bills. Fanatic politicians can take entire world economy hostage by threatening to default on US debt (dollar is world reserve currency), cut funding to Ukraine in crucial time of global crisis or sabotage essential policies to tackle climate change. The intellectual decline of American politicians is also on display. Many politicians refute Global warming, vaccines and Gun control. More abhorrent & imbecilic are their attacks on women rights, child labor laws and immigration. Yet, such imbeciles hold high public offices because people chose to give them political power. The worst political lot are in office for decades, winning multiple elections despite being abject failures.
There's a lot of pre-legislative consultation, robust parliamentary formalism in western politics. But here again, the special interest groups, reactionary think tanks etc hold a big sway over legislative agendas. For example, the defense policies that funnel hundreds of billions of $$$ of public money into coffers of defense corporations. Similarly, the shaping of policies to provide tax havens, tax shelters and loopholes to benefit plutocrats and financial industry. Recent notorious example of control of special interest groups on Political arena was Govt policy of Trillions of dollars of bailouts to rescue financial institutions in Global financial crisis in western nations.
But politicians are representation of society. The breakdown in Democracy of western countries is broader failure which goes to their societal level as well. Destructive mass movements are on the rise in recent decades in these countries leading to chaos. In America, there are variety of such movements like anti-women rights movement (calling itself pro-life), anti-immigrant movement (build the wall), anti-vax movement (Get Fauci), QAnon etc. In UK, the Brexit movement sponsored by Tories has lead to an economic disaster. Similar destructive movements are rising in Spain (Catalonia secession). In France, the social order is breaking down with riots and anarchy, part of which is related to incompetent policies of French Govt. In Germany, Afd is capitalizing on anti-migrant hysteria and now become a major political force.
There are more problems in Global South. A Trumpian populist ran Brazilian politics into the ground and tried to overturn election results. Fortunately, he is now out of office. Brazilian courts have also barred him for contesting elections for certain period. But in Argentina, another populist lunatic has grabbed public office. A scoundrel and incompetent of the highest order is demolishing its economy and institutions. Coming close to home, the neighboring Pakistan ..... it's not even worth discussing. This state seems to be on road to extinction in next couple of decades (half of it already fell apart in 1971). Pakistan was the flip side of the coin, another historic blunder created by founding fathers in Independence struggle as a separate nation.
Purpose of looking at the outside world including the developed nations is to show that there's a similarity between our domestic problems and what rest of the world is facing. The crisis of Democracy & populism, the gross incompetence of large set of elected politicians, parliamentary cretinism, the general societal decline and decay of their political system. One major difference is that developed nations still have certain institutional strength which makes them more durable to political instability. But here again, there's erosion of institutional integrity and competence in last couple of decades. For example, the packing of US Supreme court in America with highly corrupt judges, the accumulation of incompetent Neoliberal actors in economic institutions of Europe that have trapped Europe into permanent economic decline & stagnation.
Political system broken at its foundational level - India facing a constitutional failure
India is facing constitutional failure and broader crisis of Democracy. This is not just an issue of lack of transparency, parliamentary process flaws and corruption. The political system based on universal suffrage and parliamentary democracy has failed. With failure of political leadership mechanism, everything bottom down has failed as well - the institutions, the laws & regulations, the governance structure - everything has become dysfunctional & paralyzed. The constitution derives all its power from its executor which is the political leadership. Take out the leadership, nothing stands. The concept of liberties, rights, natural justice, equality etc are rendered meaningless if the political leadership has no interest and no capacity to deliver on these principles.
Political system is supposedly built as a filtering mechanism that brings out the best of the society to top. The philosophers, the thinkers, the technocrats, the problems solvers etc that have high competence to manage the country, should be the leaders that are to be brought to the fore by political system. One of the signs of political system reaching end of its life cycle is when the filtering mechanism of political system becoming a consistent failure. We now have the system that works in reverse, with the most incompetent, Pathocratic fanatic people rising to the top.
Why minimum age of voting is 18? Why it's not 14 or 12? This is because person attains a degree of intelligence with maturity hence we cannot expect children to intelligently vote for political candidates. But is 18 year old citizen of today have much intelligence? Not necessarily. Even with good education, the national issues are so complex that they can hardly be even known, let alone be well understood by 18 year old citizen. Yet, people have faith in universal suffrage. Even much of the educated class of country knows little about the national issues of India. And then, majority of people in India still lack the most basic education. They live in poverty, hunger, insecurity and unemployment. Such conditions destroys the thinking faculties and even cognitive functions of people. On collective scale, the society has much lower intellect and knowledge than any random man walking on the street.
In system of universal suffrage, people are counted, not measured. A Professor of medicine has same weight in our political system to that of any poor illiterate beggar or to that of any fringe right wing element of society. Why not extend universal suffrage to a step further? Reduce the voting age to 13 years so that children and adolescents should also have a stake in political process. And why not extend privilege of voting even further to cats, dogs & monkeys as well? But intelligence of 100 monkeys combined cannot equal to that of human. Inertia is a strong force. Le Bon mentioned in his work that political ideas/conventions which are perceived to be sacrosanct by society today are actually mediocre and obsolete which earlier came to adoption by need of the time or just purely by chance. Yet, as these political conventions were temporized with for decades, they accumulated high inertia. So today people believe that these political conventions as some extraordinary ideals and sacrosanct which have to preserved.
People mostly vote on sentiments, not on actual knowledge or objective reasoning. Social psychologists going back more than 100 years figured out these things. Read Le Bon's work from late 19th century and see how it's a revelation on Indian politics. Politicians evoke sentiments among electorates (cultural, religious etc) and hypnotize society. Street smart politicians are the masters of exploiting psychological vulnerabilities of population. Such vulnerabilities always exist in declining societies. For example, Trump exploits them is US which is a modern but post industrial state while while Modi, Yogi, Rahul Gandhi etc do it in backward 3rd world state of India. The sentiments on religion or caste or trivial cultural issues are invoked to capture the psychological vulnerabilities of society. It could be narrative of Ram Rajya or caste narrative of Dalits, Yadavs, Marathas etc. Anything that pleases populist sentiment is free to be exploited. Things are pledged and sworn for delivery that makes no sense or otherwise are never meant to be fulfilled. The rhetoric of politicians is free from all facts, reasoning and logic. The more fantastic and mystical politician's promises are, the better their impact.
The fictitious gods are great instruments to capture imagination of people. Politician can proclaim to be servant of some fictitious God and unleash mass violence in name of securing some fictitious birth place of fictitious god. People of other minority sects are declared as a threat to religious identity of majority. Inciting the extinction anxiety of cultural identity of a social group generate utmost passion & determination among masses (Hindu Khatre mein hain). You can thus build a mass political movement on religious cultural sentiments. Good economic policies create full employment and high standards of living. With cretin politicians, you have economic misery, poverty and mass unemployment. But then, the politicians can promise poor ignorant electorate with carrots of reservation & caste quotas. Much of the youth today is fooled by these carrots especially the so called backward castes. This is the caste politics in India.
Dr Bandy Lee, an American psychiatrist and an expert in scientific analysis of violence is studying socio-psychological Trump phenomenon. Proponents of deliberation, discussions and consensus building in society believe that they can produce constructive rational outcomes in society through open dialogue. Common assumption among people is that society is driven by self preservation and progress. Dr Lee's thesis show that society in its pathological state is driven in a death spiral, taking decisions that accelerates towards self destruction. Reason, logic and rationality vanishes in such state of society. You know very well that a lie travels around half the world while truth is putting on its sneakers. Rational persuasion can't counter the sentimental and emotional drive of society. An outright lie, a big lie, cannot be countered directly with logical reasoning.
You have seen such destructive behavior of society on display. Trying to reason and explain issues with followers of populist politicians generate a strong repulsive response from them. Sometimes, criticizing of politicians even results in violent reaction from their followers. The followers are incited by politicians to go on rampage where they commit riots, mass murders, rapes and worst crimes against humanity. These acts are only possible in a condition when population has lost sense of reasoning, rationality and empathy.
In populist system, the politicians' stock and trade is based on manipulating emotional drive of society, not any logical policy making and effective governance. Proponents of Deliberative Democracy wants intellectual discussions in parliamentary committees and forums for effective and transparent policy making. There are two fundamental issues with this. Firstly as i mentioned that intellectual thinking and constructive discussion is impossible for cretin politicians. You cannot make a horse out of a donkey.
Secondly, who really wants to see technical and intellectual discussions on policy making in Parliament? Parliament is a performative platform for politicians to broadcast their demagogy to the electorate. Barrage of falsehoods in fantastic fiery speeches, vile insults and inflammatory rhetoric are the hot selling commodities in Parliament. The Parliament proceedings are like TV Sops to electorate. And most people don't even care or watch Parliamentary TV because there are better entertainment channels. The activists measure parliamentary process on their own subjective high standards, ignoring the objective reality. Today's Parliament is merely a spectacle for electorate, not a substantive policy making institution. This Parliamentary dysfunction and paralysis is not limited to India, it's a rising trend in modern developed nations as well.
I mentioned that politicians are high criminals that run variety of rackets and scams. Something more has to be said on their mental pathology and political parties. Ideally, a psychologist is the best judge of these characteristics. But from my own speculation, many of these politicians are pathologically delusional, psychopathic and paranoid. They have no qualms about playing with sentiments of population, gaslighting society, committing mass murder and even destroying the country in pursuit of their ambitions. Since society has no collective intellect, it doesn't understand the predatory nature of politicians. Political parties are actually Organized crime groups - OCGs. Worst of the societal criminals band together to plan the organized plunder of nation under the shield of public offices.
The OCGs don't have to innovate any great ideas and constructive proposals to get national attention. All they needs is populist demagogy, financing (which special interest groups provide) and militias (armed gangs) to contest in political arena. Since India is a polarized society, many kinds of political parties / OCGs exist in various states. To get to parliamentary majority (or state assemblies), the parties also build alliances and partnerships - Like partnership of Gambinos, Bonanos and Sopranos to divide and share power. There's really no ideology in political parties except ambition of power, ideology is just an instrument for domination. You may have seen X politician who yesterday was sworn enemy of ideology of Y party, switching allegiance overnight and joining the Y party in the morning. Parties that were once bitter enemies can come together to form alliance. They may betray each other tomorrow and day after tomorrow they may be in bed once again. Politicians change parties like changing of clothes, parties change ideologies like etch a sketch. The whole system is an absurd cruel joke. The electorate have no memory and intellect to recognize the absurdity of the system.
With political system as accumulation of the most incompetent and corrupted leaders, the lawmaking or policy making in present political system has three main features -
1. Feeding populist sentiments - Much of the policies are meant to feed populist sentiments. Policies that oppress ethnic minorities are sold to the majority as an instrument of domination. Primitive society wants domination over weaker social groups. Policies are also launched as a carnival to entertain & amaze primitive society. The cretin politicians are constantly occupied with producing grand spectacles for primitive society. The policies may be actually destructive for society but society will tolerate foolhardy policies as they're a participant in festive exercise. For example, people disliked standing in long Bank queues during demonetization but were favorable to the policy believing its for national welfare.
Many policies are purely for vote bank capturing like Reservation laws, farm loan waivers etc without any sustainable long term goals. In fact, one central characteristic of policymakers is that they only operate on very short term basis. They usually have election cycles in mind and create policies keeping next few months or few years in mind. They don't realize or do not care if policies destabilize the state in long term.
2. Serving special interest groups - Lawmakers financed and subsidized by special interest groups repay with policy favors. The govt regulations are tailor-made according to need of special interest groups. Govt assets are privatized and sold at discounts to these groups. Govt contracts are awarded to these groups on little or no merit. Loan waivers and tax cuts are provided to big businesses which are otherwise unproductive and/or unsustainable. There are countless ways through which special interest groups achieve advantage from Govt policy & public office.
3. No substantive purpose - Keeping aside the populist motives behind policies and favors handed out to special interests, policies are made without any substantive purpose. Latest example is overhauling the legal codes of India without any purpose. A lot of time and resources are also wasted in amending past broken policies which were originally created for short term political goals. Much of the tax system of India is flawed, so every few months, new patches are applied to tax codes to try to make it functional. Ignorant and psychologically unstable politicians (especially those in office right now) also have impulse to project their grandiosity by doing big things. Foolhardy policies are dished out in spectacular manner as a giant reform (masterstroke). Such policies do immense harm to society but remorseless politicians have no empathy, so they don't care for destruction caused by them.
There are civil servants, advisers etc in Govt bureaucracy that are supposed to guide lawmakers in sound policy making. But many Govt bureaucrats are educated fools who act just like uneducated. They also lack understanding of issues and policy (people like Amitabh Kant and VK Paul). The competent bureaucrats are driven out from important positions because they are impediment to ideas of incompetent politicians. The policy making circle around cretin politicians shrinks to a close clique of special interest groups (think tanks etc) and incompetent Yes men bureaucrats. Together they work to prepare policies that are witch's stew.
With these features dictating lawmaking, how can you expect laws to be any meaningful? Policies are never meant to do good for the state & society. Policies are dysfunctional, confusing, ambiguous and meaningless by design. If by mistake, a policy turns out to be productive for society, politicians have to rework and amend it to break it. For example, Right to information laws turned out to be beneficial for society so politicians have to subvert and dilute them. Policies that bring efficiency, transparency and stability are anathema to our existing political order and politicians.
Now we look at philosophy of founding fathers. Gandhi was an extreme case of projective thinker. Being an empathetic, kind, non-violent person, he had vehement belief that these qualities are built in all other people. If not overtly, these human values still exist dormant and with sufficient reason & deliberation, these values can be aroused to the fore and rational argument can be made. With knowledge of psychology, we know that there are people who have no empathy or moral values (like sociopaths) and can't be reasoned on rational basis. Such type of personalities are quite common in politics. And with knowledge of social psychology, we know that population can become absent of any logic, reasoning and understanding of objective reality. Thus, dialogue and moral arguments are not an assured path to positive sociopolitical discourse. Gandhi, also blamed himself for society's ills and suffering. A possible reason for this is Gandhi's perceived failure to arouse the rationality, morality and non-violent inherent qualities among other people. Gandhi thought that his ideas are true but he lacks adequate action or technique to bring them to fruition.
Gandhi in final days of his life began to doubt his tenets and efficacy of his teachings. As Colonialist rule was at its end, the primitive nature of Indian society and challenges of its governance started to emerge. The colonialists plundered India but failed in their civilizing missions of Indian society. When Colonialists left the country, the country was still vastly uncivilized, highly fragmented, socially backward, illiterate and uninformed. Demanding freedom from colonialists was one thing, actually governing India was another. The communal violence and mass killings came as a horrific shock to Gandhi who strongly believed that dialogue & non-violence was the natural path of India. Deliberation and discussions were all blown away with India's partition and communal violence that resulted in Millions of deaths. Founding fathers (Congress, Muslim league etc) fought among themselves for political power and agreed to split the Indian state. Gandhi was in depression in last days of his life and also questioned his life's work though precise reasons for his depression are not known. Gandhi's life was finally ended with assassination by a right wing terrorist. Arun Shourie, an Indian author says that if Gandhi was alive today and saw India as it is now, he simply won't recognize it. Gandhi will be stone pelted if he tries to be a peacemaker today.
This is a dog eat dog world where brutal realpolitik determines foreign policy. But Nehru extended Gandhian philosophy of rationality, morality, non-violence to India's foreign policy. Blaming Colonialism for world problems, he envisioned foreign policy based on solidarity among nations abused by Colonialists. On this principle, India sought relationship with China which was also a victim of colonial abuse. China's attack on India thus came as a major shock to Nehru. Nehru was also a naive believer in global rationality of post war era putting too much faith in global institutions. Reality was that global institutions (like UN) were born as an elite club which split the spoils of war among victors. The rest of the world had little say in global power institutions. A nation cannot depend upon a global institution as a protectorate of its national security. But Nehru wanted India's national security problem, like Kashmir, to be solved by global mediation.
There was not much diversity among founding fathers. Much of them were lawyers by profession and others were activists and/or colonialized Babus. Since their populist movements were non-violent, there weren't any Generals, Geostrategic thinkers or Military minded people among them. None of them were any Scientists or industrial entrepreneurs either. There was lack of insight on foreign policy and theory of the state in the collective group of founding fathers. Founding fathers had narrow view about challenges of a state and dynamics of its social psychology, economic industrial policy, foreign policy, governance, realpolitik etc.
Demanding freedom from colonialists is one thing, actually running the country effectively is another. For Gandhi, the answer to national problems was dialogue and rational discussions. While the independence was a strong motivator of founding fathers, little else was contemplated on the ideas of post independent India. Their pre-rooted anti imperialist thinking did not have much room to conceptualize economic vision of India. For a nation to be prosperous, independence alone is not sufficient to create a healthy society. The key thing is creation of wealth of nation. By wealth, it means attaining industrial, socioeconomic and scientific progress. A nation which cannot create wealth will always go into regression, no matter how well meaning the moral virtues of its politicians are.
By mid 20th century, modern nations were focusing on economic development & large scale industrial production. The idea of rural farm sector economy had already been abandoned by the world by early 20th century itself. The demand for 20th century was about mass industrial production, science & technological innovation and converting all this progress into economic growth and foreign trade. India at its independence was a rural agrarian and highly unorganized society. Due to populism & lack of vision, there was strong tendency to preserve the unorganized wasteful old system. Farming was always hailed as the mother of Indian society (slogans of Jai Jawan Jai Kisan).
Even till today, India is unable to create a functional land reform and urban development policy because populist sentiments have paralyzed the essential reforms in Agriculture sector. Gandhian principle of social harmony was insufficient and flawed. Social harmony can only be established under economic prosperity. For a society to be harmonious, it requires full employment, personal wealth & property, opportunities to climb social ladder, economic rights etc in addition to fundamental liberties of freedom of speech & expression. Poor, starving and desperate population cannot abide by norms of social harmony and moral virtues.
With country having suffered under dictatorship and monarchies of various kinds in past centuries, founding fathers thinking was based on using Democratic process against threat of dictatorial government. But dictatorships can arrive with mass movements as well and eventually did arrive in 1990s with Hindutva insurrection. The threats & destructiveness of majoritarianism, populist irrationality, mass psychosis etc were not fully comprehended by founding fathers. Focus of building India's political system was on Democratic process, not very much on substantive legitimacy. Democracy in present shape and form is people electing their own dictators. Today, much of the society is disillusioned by the Democratic process revering it as a holy grail.
Here we look at concept of political legitimacy of government - Process legitimacy and substantive legitimacy. Process legitimacy is fulfilling of political process and formalities - contesting and winning elections, building parliamentary coalitions for majority mark etc to form governments. Substantive legitimacy is actually delivering on right policies and competently governing the country. Delivering on economic, industrial and scientific progress, building towards affluent society. Today much focus of activists and society is on process legitimacy as they revere Democratic process as a holy grail. The political order of today has process legitimacy but has no substantive legitimacy. The political exercise of universal suffrage and elections are carried out but leaders getting elected are incapable to deliver on anything.
I mentioned in earlier article about prerequisites for a healthy Democracy - A large stable middle class, socioeconomic equality, strong institutions, sociopolitical stability etc. An environment where society is psychologically healthy to make rational political choices. Such prerequisites never existed in India and India was never able to attain them. But India, since its inception, laid its faith in Democratic process legitimacy even when it lacked substance. Today, there's no substantive legitimacy in Indian political system yet the system is cherished by society and activists alike.
Linear thinking involves holding certain tenets and employing them to build assumptions, leading to conclusions in a predictable manner. Founding fathers were bound by their tenets of non-violence, populist rationality, anti-colonialism, Democracy etc and applied them to shape national & international policy. I mentioned how analysts are riddled with linear mechanistic projective thinking in their search for reforms. For them, the idea of reform is like finding patchwork to the existing political system. If they think something is broken at some level, they try to find a fix that level. But problem may be emanating at some entirely different level which is producing symptoms at other levels or perhaps the whole system itself is flawed. For example, much focus is on reforming parliamentary formalistic process rather than overhauling the underlying political system - on how we choose the political leadership. Process reforms are contemplated so as to put politicians on their best behavior, constraining them with checks and balances. But the checks and balances of a system can only work within certain limits and in normal conditions. When a large set of politicians are high criminals and people still chose to give them power, no amount of process formalism, checks and balances can tame their pathological criminal behavior.
The political system has to supplemented with some grand policy narrative as well. Politics is intertwined with structural economic issues, social psychological dynamics, geopolitical and globalized factors. A political system must keep a strong momentum of a grand policy ideas. For many developed nations, the economic progress propelled by industrial revolution was the grand narrative. This made UK the world superpower (also on back of its colonial expansion) in 19th to early 20th century. After great depression, the US New Deal, it's stance against Fascism, American exceptionalism and its industrial might was the grand narrative that made it the superpower. This also benefited Western Bloc nations & Pacific allies in their reconstruction and progress. US then had decades of strong economic progress (the so called golden years of post war America) but with rise of Neoliberalism, US started to stagnate which was further accelerated by its nonsensical foreign policy of early 21st century of long wars. China picked up the mantle in late 20th century with it's own grand narrative of 100 year marathon which propelled it to become industrial powerhouse. This helped China to rise from mass poverty and economic stagnation.
Nations rise and decline, and the health of their political system plays significant role in their destiny. Political systems also get decayed and obsolete, so have to be amended and maintained. Sometimes, political systems are in good health but the political leaders lack new ideas or succumb to bad ideas. Then nations start to stagnate, entering into a feedback loop which start affecting their political system. If nation cannot keep up with new ideas for long, its political system gets dysfunctional and paralyzed. Example is UK which became a dysfunctional post-industrial nation whose decline started after end of World War 2. European nations got trapped into Neoliberal designs and couldn't escape out of them. That's the stagnation of Eurozone states which destabilized their political systems.
Future of Politics - Way out of this quagmire?
There are primarily two reasons why people are still trapped in dogmas of the existing system - the principles of founding fathers, populism, universal suffrage etc. First is that people genuinely lack intellect to think outside of this system. Hence they continue to innovate band aid reforms and reconfiguring of old broken system to somehow make it functional. But there's a second very legitimate reason of people trapped in existing system. There are no easy alternatives to present broken system. In fact, many thinkers have long been temporizing with the present system only because there are no clear alternatives. Even if alternatives can be contemplated, the bigger problem is how to implement them. Having good alternatives doesn't guarantee that reform process will actually conclude in better final state. For example, we know that populist rationality is a chimera. Here, the right wingers also agree and want to impose their own kind of monarchical political rule. If universal suffrage is aborted, the present political Mafias currently enjoying full control over political power, would be happily bring their own version of political authoritarianism. Hence, ending universal suffrage comes with various problems starting with an all out conflict between various power factions.
As flawed the concept of universal suffrage was at its inception, it has also been a deterrent against the old monarchism and other power grabs by various factions (caste, religion, Plutocratic etc). The power factions contend for power through process of civilized elections instead of brute force and violent power struggles. For this reason, thinkers continue to temporize with present system. Another advantage of Democratic system is that it gives an illusion to electorate of being a stakeholder in political system. Democracy in our present shape & form is like dictatorship but it has an effective facade of true Democracy - a Potemkin Democracy. Political systems where people believe that they don't have any political power are destabilizing where society may revolt against the ruling class. Thus Democracy, even in its broken dysfunctional form, has some stabilizing effect in society.
If history tells us anything, big national change often comes with big conflict and anarchy. The US civil war, the Russian revolution, the French revolution, the defeat of 3rd Reich etc are all historical events with different dynamics and end results (good or bad) but with something in common. They show that a fundamental shift in political discourse was accompanied by initial process of much violence and chaos. Also major political shifts didn't happen through process of a dialogue and deliberation. It happened with one faction putting down another with brute force. In US, the confederate slaveholder states were put down with force by the union. In Germany, the allied powers and resistance forces crushed third Reich with force and executed Fascists/Nazis. After a faction was victorious, it rebuilt the political system and shaped political discourse to its interest.
Some lessons from the world
What political system is best for society? - It depends upon epoch and character of society. There's no one size fits all solution. If a particular political system functions well for one nation, it may not for another. If a political system works for a nation in present, there's no guarantee it will work in the future as well. Political systems have life cycle ranging from few decades to as much as a century. The political systems and various Democracies in the world have been through significant turmoil where they have made amendments to their political systems. Some nations reformed their Democracy, some changed from Democracy to not-Democracy, some reformed their dictatorships and many kinds and combinations of experiments were performed for political reconstruction. In terms of Democracy, it also has no uniform single standards. Democracy of US, Europe, Middle East etc are of very different kinds. Then there are countries which don't have any Democracy but still doing well, like China.
Western nations have universal suffrage but they also have defense mechanisms & strong legal system to safeguard against Populist Fascist parties. Moreover, the new innings of European Democracies began after the execution of Fascist politicians, so these systems were much healthier to make new beginnings. Major Democracies of Europe transformed into Fascism in 1920s & 30s and broke down completely. Their political system was rebuilt with post war reconstruction of Europe.
In the whole exercise, the Fascist politicians were executed & neutralized, Fascist parties & organizations were dismantled and banned, and Democracies were restarted with defense mechanisms (militant Democracy). For example, political parties which are threat to Democracy itself can be banned from national politics in Germany. Currently, processes are underway in trying to ban AfD party in Germany. In Italy, Fascist party is banned by constitution itself and cannot be revived. Ideally, India should've banned BJP in 1991 & along with all religious militant organization. All the politicians associated with it should have been neutralized more than three decades ago.
In middle east, keeping aside theological malarkey of Iran, there are positive things. For example, a Parliamentarian must have at least a Master's degree to be eligible for office and his educational record should be in public domain for scrutiny. Imagine if we have such system in India. Much of the politicians are illiterate/uneducated and/or fake degree holders with no real qualification. In our political system, any uneducated primitive person can run for public office. A surgeon requires years & years of education & training to operate on a patient. But a lawmaker whose job is probably equally demanding (maybe more) is allowed into office without any education.
In US, it's political system got its first major crisis with Civil war that threatened its existence. The slave holder confederate states revolted against the Union. They were neutralized after a civil war and US political system was reformed which worked well for more than a century. Thinking a little naively, there's a loose similarity between US civil war and India's Hindutva insurrection that started in 90s. The backward cow belt revolted against the union of India. Unfortunately, the union quickly surrendered and allowed regressive North states to dictate political discourse of India. This is the rise of BJP and setting of political discourse that now exists in India. Nations evolve or regress with political crisis. India unfortunately, regressed at critical junctures of history. Now US political system is facing its second major crisis with MAGA movement. Their Democracy has now become highly dysfunctional and paralyzed. How US emerges from this shock is yet to be seen and will offer some clues to rest of the world.
Democracy
Democracy is a centuries old idea. An idea emerging somewhere around medieval times, a period when societal problem were simple. A period when planetary resources seemed abundant, societal needs were basic and primitive, and management of society was simple affair. How much wheat has to be grown? How much goats will a tribe keep? What defensive measures are needed against foreign tribes & invaders? These were the kind of limited scope of problems. Since management of tribe was not a complex business, anybody with average intelligence could lead the tribes. Tribes could get together & chose any leader among its people. The real nature of global problems (present & future) was mostly unknown. For example, the finite earthly constraints (fresh water, non renewables resources, ecological capacity of planet etc) were not understood.
Then with 20th century, the problems became more complicated and challenging. For example, we came to know about things like global warming & challenges that came with it (food insecurity, floods & droughts & threat to civilization). World politics also became unstable and more uncertain. Nations built weapons that can wipe out the civilization - the coming of Nuclear age & global arms race. This complicated global politics considerably. We also came to know about deadly diseases and pandemics, and possibility that some pandemic awaits which has capability to wipe out civilization. Since then, scientists are constantly working in analyzing and researching on deadly diseases. Society evolved with new opportunities and challenges, and began transforming rapidly. National economies and global economy evolved greatly becoming highly complex, and policy making thus also became complex. Foreign policy and global trade also became complex. Competent leaders were required to navigate through fog of Nuclear age and complex foreign affairs.
National and global challenges are technocratic matters today. Optimization of supply chains (especially in Climate change era). Managing effective demand to achieve full employment. Boosting labor productivity and maintaining healthy wage structures. Achieving ecological sustainability as well as socioeconomic parities. Policies to drive sustainable business cycles & financial stability of economy. Driving scientific innovation and technological advancement for healthy economy. Building sustainable cities & farming practices, better transport systems, modernizing energy production, solving problems of Air pollution, water pollution, redesigning the whole urban ecosystem. And with all these areas is necessity of perpetuity of labor force instruction, modernization & evolution. Currently, world is on cusp of Artificial intelligence revolution which further requires great competence for its regulation and productive utilization. Beyond all of that, there are even bigger challenges. How to take human civilization into outer space? Stephen Hawking said that the human kind will be finished in next 1000 years if it doesn't expand into outer space. The finite planetary resources constraints have to be solved soon for survival of human civilization.
National problem solving is very much a technical-scientific matter. You have to understand national and global issues in scientific ways. You need to have high competence and qualification to analyze the data - the econometrics, the environmental data, data on national resources & their constraints. Then you have to contemplate solutions that are needed to be implemented. How did politics become cultural-populist-religious matter? When politicians were incompetent & unable to deliver on real matters, they invented rube bait diversionary issues for their political convenience.
Systemic thinking is about analyzing system as a whole and also trying to see system as a sub-system in broader framework. Systemic thinking does not see properties of independent bits & bobs of system as of major significance, rather it sees them as ergodic characteristic of whole system. Problem solving in systemic approach is not much about analyzing the property of moving pieces individually, but rather observing the whole system. Systemic thinking tries to generalize and aggregate problems and tries to solve problem from a large perspective. Since problem solving is essential, the remedies to be found are looked without any bounds to system. If there's a major problem in system and tinkering with bits & bobs of system does not yield results, then problem has to be solved by changing the system altogether into a new better model that may be completely different to past one, all bits & bobs redesigned.
Political reforms of India need out of bounds thinking of the present political system. The bits & bobs of new political system have to be redesigned starting with the main engine which drives the political system, that is the mechanism of electing/appointing political leaders. The filtering system of politics to be designed to bring out the best brains from society into public office. The institutions of new system to be reshaped to make them more robust and efficient. Populist irrationality to be contained with checks and balances while still giving liberties to population.
On question of Democracy. Definitely the world would be better with intellectual and affluent society. An educated, wealthy and psychologically stable society which will be able to take rational decisions. Everyone will be informed enough to make rational political choices which will translate into healthy political system. But that is not what we have today. Maybe with enough progress we will have a better society in future and then the universal suffrage can become a viable solution. A really functional Democracy is an Utopia which we wish to attain in long run.
Suggested reading
- Dangerous Case of Donald Trump (2019) by editor Bandy X Lee
- Violence: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Causes, Consequences, and Cures by Bandy X Lee
- Profile of a Nation by Bandy X Lee
- The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind by Gustave Le Bon
- Fascism and Big Business by Daniel Guerin
- Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of twentieth century by Brad De Long
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