Latest news with #Nehruvian
The Hindu
19-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
For RSS-BJP-Hindutva, Gandhi is the Real Enemy: Ashutosh
Published : May 19, 2025 13:22 IST - 19 MINS READ In a wide-ranging interview with Frontline, the veteran journalist and Satya Hindi co-founder Ashutosh offers a stark analysis of India's political trajectory since 2014, characterising Narendra Modi's rise as a 'right-wing revolution' that has fundamentally disrupted the nation's constitutional consensus. Speaking about his new book, Reclaiming Bharat: What Changed in 2024 and What Lies Ahead, the former TV news anchor examines how the 2024 election results signal potential cracks in the BJP's Hindutva project while warning that the RSS remains committed to dismantling Gandhian and Nehruvian ideals in its quest for a Hindu Rashtra. Excerpts: The 2024 Lok Sabha election was both exhausting and exhilarating, and you distilled its complexities into Reclaiming Bharat. As a senior journalist, what was your process for capturing this pivotal moment? Thank you so much because it's a privilege to be interviewed by Frontline magazine, which I have always admired for decades. Reclaiming Bharat is not a chronicling of events. This book is an attempt to understand the transformative changes which the country is going through since 2014. And within that context, I've tried to analyse the 2024 parliamentary election. This is a sequel to my earlier book called Hindu Rashtra. Because in Hindu Rashtra, I did not chronicle events. I tried to analyse, dissect, and understand the five years of the Narendra Modi government from 2014 to 2019 within an ideological framework. What I personally believe is that this is the march of an ideological state. The transfer of power that happened between Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi is not an ordinary transfer of power. I compare it with the transfer of power which has taken place on August 15, 1947. Till Manmohan Singh's government, there was largely a collective understanding about the basic parameters of Indian society and Indian polity—the constitutional consensus, the democratic consensus, or the Nehruvian consensus. That consensus was broken with the transfer of power from Manmohan Singh to Narendra Modi. The ideology is Hindutva. And Hindutva ideology is diametrically opposite to constitutionalism, to the rule of law in the country, and to the Nehruvian consensus. Like a Left revolution, this is what we are witnessing today is a right wing revolution. It's a Hindutva revolution. Revolution has three distinctive characteristics: it disconnects itself from the past, it disrupts the present, and it deconstructs the future. Disconnectedness from the past means it doesn't want to connect itself with the Nehruvian consensus. That's why you hear from fringe elements that India got freedom in 2014. There is a reconstruction of the collective minds at an industrial level. Many who witnessed the politics before 2014, after 2014, when we talk to them, you get a shock. Even family members are so vehemently unrecognisable these days. This has happened because the RSS has been very categorical, and with the help of the state and state-sponsored propaganda, it has reconstructed collective minds at industrial level. You talked about the Nehruvian consensus. You have described Narendra Modi's 2014 rise as a 'revolution'. Only recently, Yogendra Yadav called the 2019 results the 'end of India's first republic'. How does you characterise the 2024 election outcome? Yogendra Yadav is a friend of mine, but I do not agree with his hypothesis fully. Because if you want to understand 2019 and call it the death of the first republic, then what about 2014? The process was on from 2014 onwards when these forces captured the state. Not captured in the sense but in a democratic space. They were part of the democratic process. Why did the nature of the state not change when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister and an RSS swayamsevak? It's only because it was a coalition government. In 2014, when Modi became the Prime Minister, they had an absolute majority in Parliament. This was the golden opportunity for them to implement their agenda. The BJP had never ever hidden its agenda. They talked about Article 370, they've been talking about uniform civil code, Ramjanmabhoomi, pseudo-secularism, Muslim appeasement. When they formed the government they had every right to implement their agenda like other political parties did. The difference was earlier, there was more or less consensus about constitutionalism, equality, liberty, and fraternity, consensus about plural society, democratic process, that India has to be an inclusive society, not an exclusive society. There was no attempt to chase a utopia called Hindu Rashtra because with the adoption of the constitution, that utopia was achieved. But here, a political force was operating within the four walls of the Constitution, but they were not happy with that. Also Read | Ambedkar said a Hindu Raj would be the biggest calamity to India: Anand Teltumbde You also note in your book that there have been efforts to dismantle that Nehruvian consensus and malign Jawaharlal Nehru. Given the 2024 results which denied the BJP a solo majority, what does it mean for Nehru's idea of pluralistic India? See, this is the fundamental question which both books are trying to explore, why they want to dismantle Nehruvian thought process. Frankly speaking, they are not dismantling Nehruvian thought process, they are dismantling Gandhian thought process. Nehru is only the first milestone in that direction. The RSS and Hindutva know in their heart that this is not the right time to annihilate Gandhian ideas because Gandhi is too powerful. Since Gandhi was not in the government [but] Nehru was in the government and ran a government for 17 years. So, somebody who is in the government, it's easy to criticise. Gandhi chose Nehru as a successor because Gandhi knew that the ideas he has postulated are the best of Indian civilisation. Nehru is the only one which can take it forward. We should be thankful to Gandhi that he chose Nehru as a successor. The RSS, the BJP, and Hindutva basically want to dismantle the entire edifice created by Mahatma Gandhi. Since they can't attack him right now, they are using Nehru to damage that edifice to a substantial level. Gandhi is the real enemy. The RSS fundamentally believes that Hindus were too soft and too timid. That is why they were ruled by Muslims and then Christians. Savarkar puts it in his book Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History, where all the good things about Hindu civilisation are perverted virtues. Savarkar thinks that India became a slave of Muslims and Christians because of these virtues. Gandhi epitomises these values. Gandhi talks about Satya, Ahimsa, and the RSS has a problem with non-violence because they think non-violence has made Hindus too timid. When they talk about dismantling Nehruvian consensus, they are basically in the process of dismantling the Gandhian consensus. It's not only a political battle, it's not only an ideological battle. It's basically a civilisational battle too. You have written a chapter about the Election Commission of India ('When the Referee Goes Rogue'). The ECI faced intense scrutiny over EVM efficacy and institutional credibility leading up to the 2024 election. How do you assess the validity of these concerns? Reform is not possible till this government is there. You don't need a reform. The Election Commission is one institution, like any other institution. If the people occupying the post don't succumb to the pressures of ideology called Hindutva, they will not be there. They are very carefully chosen to work for the creation of Hindu Rashtra. And that's why you must have seen the radical change in the Indian media. This radical change is only because of the ideological pressures. The whole edifice of Indian state is now working within that ideological framework. The fight with the judiciary is for the simple reason because judiciary is trying to guard their independence. Thankfully, judiciary has not surrendered till now. But the Election Commission has surrendered completely. I had covered the Election Commission when [former Chief Election Commissioner] T.N. Seshan was there. If T.N. Seshan could do so much within that framework, these people operating within the same framework couldn't perform because they don't want to perform. The concerns raised by different political parties about how the ECI failed to provide a level playing field are genuine concerns. About the EVM thing, I don't have any evidence so I will not talk about it. But yes, the ECI is totally aligned with the government. It is an extended office of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The 2024 parliamentary election has been the most communal election, most provocative election. But the Election Commission was sleeping somewhere else. In your book, one chapter highlights tactical Muslim voting in 2024, which was key to denying the BJP a majority. What does this portend for India's Muslim community during Modi's third term? Muslims are going through a tough time, there is no doubt about it. If you talk to the large section of Muslim intellectuals, the Muslim middle class, they are going through a huge trauma. Many confided in me privately that they never thought India will be like this. They always believed India is a secular, plural society and Hindus are most tolerant. Their identity as Muslims was never questioned. What hurts them is when we question their commitment to the country, their patriotism, their nationalism. That is what has hurt them. Earlier, they used to react, get very excited about any attack. In this election, they used their silence as a weapon of retaliation. They realised in a society where they are much less in number, only 14 per cent of the population, it's better not to get provoked. They strategically thought that Muslims should not go in herds, should not be wearing their identities all the time, and they should be silently going and voting without being provoked. The BJP, despite trying to polarise the elections, up to a certain extent they did succeed, but not to a large extent. The Muslims have also reached the conclusion that whether the Shia is targeted or the Sunni is targeted, whether the Syed is targeted, the Pasmandas are targeted—the Muslim identity per se is in danger. So let's forget about our differences. Let's be together. That's why in the last few years there's hardly any clashes between the Shias and the Sunnis. They've also rejected the clergy because they believe the clergy, these religious so-called leaders, have damaged the image of society more than anybody else. A new middle class, a literate middle class, is emerging among the Muslims who are focussing on businesses and education—if you are educated enough, if you are economically well off then you will have more power in the structure. Moving to Uttar Pradesh: you have detailed Awadhesh Prasad Pasi's secular campaign in Faizabad, which countered the BJP's Ram Mandir narrative. But the BJP's recent Milkipur byelection win shows the BJP's resilience. Can the Samajwadi Party's PDA (Picchda-Dalit-Alpasankhyak) coalition model effectively challenge Yogi Adityanath's Hindutva dominance in 2027? I think two most important developments occurred in the 2024 parliamentary election. One was purely political. The other was purely ideological. The Varanasi election is purely political because it busted the myth that Modi is invincible. Whereas Ayodhya is an ideological thing. A person who was supposed to be invincible, who had never lost an election, was literally on the verge of losing that election. Amit Shah was stationed there in Varanasi in the last two days before polling. Imagine if he had not been there. The most powerful person after the Prime Minister was holding the fort for the Prime Minister. The government must have had some information. That is why Amit Shah was sent on an emergency duty. Look at Ayodhya. Two months back, the Ram Mandir temple was consecrated with such pomp. And the BJP is losing. The person who was defeating them has coined one of the most radical slogans. Where was he coining this? In Ayodhya. Ayodhya is the reason for the resurgence of the BJP. Before the Ayodhya movement, the BJP was nowhere. It was reduced to only two seats. The whole edifice of the BJP's ideology, that is Hindutva, comes down crashing. If you can lose in Ayodhya then what is the guarantee you won't lose elsewhere? That shows the fragility of the ideology. You write about how the 'Save Constitution' campaign and the caste census demand resonated with Dalit and OBC voters in 2024 and boosted the INDIA bloc's numbers. Now you have had the Modi government's recent caste census announcement. Do you see it as a genuine response to public pressure or just a strategic move? This is basically an electoral compulsion that has dictated the BJP to accept the caste census. Otherwise, ideologically the BJP and the RSS will never accept a caste census. Because in their thesis, the RSS believed that Hindus were dominated by Muslims and Christians for such a long period in history because Hindus were divided into different castes. So there was no Hindu unity. But they also know that since 2014, a large section of Hindu society could be radicalised or ideologised because they had a Prime Minister who is RSS-bred. Through the national government, they could capture different institutions and get legitimacy for the RSS ideology and Hindutva. Dalits and OBCs derive their identity through the Constitution. Before the adoption of the Constitution, there was no concept of equality in this country. It was a very unequal society. The Constitution has brought that equality. So, legally speaking, constitutionally speaking, everybody is equal. But the concept of social equality is still missing. The Dalits and OBCs know that they can get social equality as long as the Constitution is there. If the Constitution is not there tomorrow, then they will be back to square one. They will be treated the way they had been treated in the past. So for them, it became a matter of existence. And they comprise 70 per cent of the population. This is where the genius of Rahul Gandhi lies. He is the one man who has been consistently talking about the caste census when everybody ridiculed him, mocked him, insulted him. He was vehement about this and also tried to implement it in Karnataka and Telangana. The BJP realised that if this genie gets out of the bottle, then the tables will be turned. Because of the electoral compulsion, they have gone for the caste census. Ideologically, the BJP and RSS don't want a caste census. But because of electoral compulsion, they have no other option than to do it reluctantly. In your book, you have argued that voters rejected Modi's divinity claims in 2024. But the BJP's subsequent wins in Haryana, Maharashtra, and Delhi, with Modi less prominent in those campaigns, suggest adaptability. Are you hinting at the BJP planning a post-Modi era already? Let's not talk about the BJP. It's an RSS government. The BJP is only a political shop. The succession plan will not be decided by the BJP but by the RSS leaders like Mohan Bhagwat. The people sitting in Nagpur will decide the succession. It's like a big company that has different verticals. Mohan Bhagwat is the chairman of the company called the RSS. The BJP is one of the verticals. And Modi, as a CEO, heads that vertical. Things will be decided at the RSS level, not at the BJP level. Look at the BJP—it has failed to appoint its party president for almost one and a half years. Why? Because the RSS doesn't agree with the choices given by the BJP. Now, the RSS has reached the conclusion that the gains which they got through the Modi government are humongous. But the time has come to consolidate that gain. So now onward, they're looking for a leader who can help them save the gains, help them consolidate, and be patient enough to plan for the next leap. Somebody more moderate than Modi. Somebody who could combine Hindutva in its core but seems to be more democratic, more modern, more inclusive in appearance, in perception. Somebody younger, because it's not that Modi will be replaced by Rajnath Singh, who's of his age. But I still don't feel that Modi is going to be replaced very soon. The INDIA bloc showed unity post the 2024 results in Parliament. But leaders like Tejashwi Yadav and Omar Abdullah have recently questioned its viability. Can this bloc sustain cohesion until 2029? The sad part is that the INDIA bloc as a whole has not been able to grasp the enormity of the crisis through which the country is going. That's a problem with the regional leaders who are more worried about their region, their State, the politics in that State. Many of them lack the national perspective which is needed at the moment. More or less all the coalition partners are competing for the same space, the same secular liberal space. So if the Congress gets very powerful, improves its vote shares or seat numbers then obviously it will eat into the pie of its allies because they share the same sociopolitical space. This coalition is only a strategic coalition. Despite having ideological affinity, it is not a sustainable coalition for a very long time. Take the case of Bihar. Nitish Kumar has a different social base altogether: the Janata Dal (United) has secular credentials, a Muslim vote bank. The BJP's social base is entirely different. So Nitish Kumar and the BJP are not competing for the same sociopolitical space but Tejashwi Yadav [of the Rashtriya Janata Dal] and the CPI(M), the CPI(M-L), and the Congress are competing for the same sociopolitical space. One thing for which Rahul Gandhi never gets credit is that he has succeeded in creating a parallel ideological edifice with three elements. One is secularism: through the Bharat Jodo Yatra, when he got the confidence and support of the people. But his secularism is not a negation of religion but engages with religion. Point number two is the politics of social justice. The Congress has never done the politics of social justice. That was done by Mulayam Singh, Ram Manohar Lohia, Karpoori Thakur, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, and others. Rahul Gandhi has concluded that unless the Congress gets the support of a substantial chunk of the OBCs it will be difficult for Congress to bounce back at the national level. The third is constitutionalism. So these are the three pillars of the new ideology—secularism, social justice, and constitutionalism. I will not say it is spelled out as robustly as Hindutva is, but I could see that a parallel ideological edifice is being created. Rahul should be given credit for saying the fight is not with Modi but with the RSS. He has identified where the battle should be fought. Tomorrow, if Modi is not there, somebody else from the BJP and the RSS will come and pursue almost the same course. Unless Hindutva is fought, unless Hindutva is discredited, it will be difficult for the BJP to be defeated. The opposition is trying to reclaim the ground which they have conceded to the BJP, whereas the government is trying to reclaim the ground which they think in history they have conceded to the Muslims and the Christians. The opposition is trying to reclaim the Bharat which they have lost since 2014, whose pillars were constitutionalism, democracy, secularism, rule of law, freedom of expression, Nehruvian ideas, Gandhian ideas. Also Read | 'We must push back, otherwise we'll live in a police state': Siddhartha Deb This year is the centenary of the RSS, and your book's epilogue explores its internal turmoil post the 2024 results. Given the BJP's recent Assembly election successes and Mohan Bhagwat's more accommodative stance, do you think the RSS can adopt a similar stance towards marginalised sections of Indian society? Hindutva and constitutionalism are inimical to each other. There's no doubt about it. The BJP and the RSS, in its heart, don't accept this Constitution. When the Constitution was adopted, they said there's nothing Indian in this Constitution and Hindus will not accept this. Savarkar said almost the same thing. Deendayal Upadhyaya in 1965 said that Indian Constitution is a threat to India's unity, integrity. Deendayal never accepted the Indian federal structure. He said this is a sign of weakness. He also talked about 'Dharma Rajya': that if one person is with the 'Dharma' then the parliament and majority doesn't matter. Mohan Bhagwat today is a worried man. The RSS leadership have realised that the way Hindutva is going there is a possibility that it can get discredited. Like political Islam got discredited at the global level. Today political Islam is perceived as a violent ideology, an intolerant ideology. The kind of negative press that the Modi government and Hindutva has got at the global level has really made them think. The RSS is a very resilient organisation, a very patient organisation willing to wait for another 25 years. They don't want to get discredited the way political Islam has been discredited. There is a realisation that this is the time when they should consolidate their gain, wait, and then take a new ideological leap in future. For Narendra Modi, becoming Prime Minister again can be his priority. But for the RSS, capturing power is important but their goal is Hindu unity. If they realise that forming the government can damage their Hindu unity project then they can disown politics. That's why Bhagwat is saying 'without Muslim there is no Hindu'. These are voices which seem strange because they give an impression that the RSS is inclusive. No, that is not true. They are very happy with the gains Hindutva has made. But they want to dispel the perception that Hindutva is divisive, violent, intolerant. The problem is they have trained generations of swayamsevaks with a mindset based on hate. Now they're telling their karyakartas not to hate. It's like they're mounted on a ferocious tiger and telling the tiger to stop eating non-vegetarian, eat vegetarian. The tiger can say 'you taught me to eat something else, now you're telling me to eat something else. I'll prefer to eat you than eat vegetables.' How they will control it depends on how they manage things from here onwards, which will decide the longevity of Hindutva. If they remain adventurous as they are now, calling Muslims infiltrators or digging everywhere to find a Shivling, it's dangerous. The RSS has to do a lot of work to tame the tiger, wait for some time, and then wait for the leap.
The Hindu
16-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Modi is a coward who fears Nehruvian ideology: Palakkad DCC president
Palakkad District Congress Committee (DCC) president A. Thankappan described Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a coward who fears Jawaharlal Nehru and Nehruvian ideology. Mr. Thankappan was speaking after inaugurating a rally and cultural resistance programme organised by the Congress's Samskara Sahiti outside the Head Post Office here on Friday. The programme was held in protest against the Modi government's decision to rename Nehru Yuva Kendra as Mera Yuva Bharat. The Congress leader criticised the move saying that it was part of the BJP's ongoing effort to erase Nehru's legacy from the country's history. The renaming of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in Delhi was part of that move, he said. Mr. Thankappan said that while the government could remove Nehru's name from official records, it could never erase his legacy from the collective memory of the people where it has become deeply ingrained. Samskara Sahiti district chairman Boban Mattumantha presided over the function. State working chairman N.V. Pradeep Kumar, State general secretaries Annie Varghese and Pranavam Prasad, State committee members Tinu Thomas and C.K. Haridas, district convener N. Vinesh and district vice-presidents C.N. Sivadas and Kaladharan Uppumpadam spoke. 'The Sahiti will hold cultural resistance programmes in different parts of Palakkad to counter the BJP's attempts to erase Nehru's legacy from history,' said Mr. Mattumantha.
News18
15-05-2025
- Politics
- News18
Bangladesh Hands Over Detained Indian Farmer To BSF, BJP Thanks PM Modi
Last Updated: Local sources say Ukil Burman and his wife had crossed the barbed wire fence with permission from the BSF to irrigate their farmland but he was 'abducted by 4-5 men' Ukil Burman, a farmer who was taken into custody by Bangladeshi authorities late in April, was released and handed over to the Border Security Force (BSF) on Wednesday night, close on the heels of Pakistan sending BSF jawan Purnam Shaw home. Burman's family in Sitalkuchi in West Bengal's Cooch Behar district had been anxiously awaiting his return for nearly a month. According to his wife, he was working in his paddy field near the India-Bangladesh border when he was abducted. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had instructed the Chief Secretary to pursue the matter through appropriate diplomatic channels. Local Member of Parliament Jagdish Basuniya confirmed that Burman had been held in a Bangladeshi jail. Speaking to News18, he said, 'From what we know, he was in jail in Bangladesh. It's good that he has now been released. We stood by his family throughout. He is our Rajbongshi brother." The incident took place in the border village of Paschim Sitalkuchi. Local sources say Burman and his wife, Sabya Bala Barman, had crossed the barbed wire fence with permission from the BSF to irrigate their farmland. Recalling the day of the incident, Sabya Bala said: 'Around 8am, we went across the fence to water the crops. Around noon, he left the irrigation pump near the fence and went further into the field, asking me to stay back. That's when I heard his cries. Four to five Bangladeshi men abducted him." Reacting to his release, BJP leader Amit Malviya thanked 'the Prime Minister and the Home Minister for their outstanding leadership". 'However, you may not have heard the opposition raising its voice for the release of Ukil Barman. That's because the Nehruvian ecosystem has long erased East Pakistan—now Bangladesh—from national discourse, conveniently overlooking the suffering of millions of Bengali Hindu refugees. But that narrative must change. It is time to refocus on West Bengal and reclaim the state's rich cultural heritage. The first step begins with ensuring Mamata Banerjee's ouster in 2026." First Published: May 15, 2025, 11:04 IST
Time of India
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Who and what failed the backward sections of the society
The declaration of the NDA government to include the caste-based enumeration in the upcoming census has enormously charged the political atmosphere of this country. Soon after the decision, political parties across India rushed to take credit for it. Given the above, this article seeks to explore the reasons behind the backwardness of the backward sections of the society (SCs, STs, and OBCs) in the post-independent India, and who should be principally held responsible for it. When India gained independence, it had the opportunity to choose the path and nature of the economic development. There were a few alternatives to decide on the course of its development. Two prominent, although contrasting alternatives proposed were: Bombay Plan and the Gandhian Plan. The Bombay plan was recommended by a group of industrialists and technocrats from Bombay, aiming to double the per capita income within 15 years of its implementation. The Gandhian Plan suggested by Shriman Narayan was based on the Gandhian ideas of development, focusing on self-sufficiency, the primary sector, the labour-intensive sector, decentralisation, and trusteeship. The modified version of the Bombay Plan, with the Nehruvian establishments, however, triumphed over other plans. The Gandhian principles of development thus got undermined contrary to the wish of M.K. Gandhi, who said (AICC, January 25, 1942), 'once I am gone, Jawahar will do what I am doing now. Then he will speak my language too.' Nehruvian economic policy and backward communities As an outcome, the benefit of the 17 years of Nehruvian path of development was confined only to a few wealthy, resourceful, and educated, but it remained far more disappointing for the vast majority. Ashwini Saith (1988) explained this phenomenon as the industrialisation-led development strategies immensely failed in terms of the reduction in the level as well as the intensity of the endemic poverty. The above failure could be explained in terms of overemphasis on industry over agriculture, capital-intensive heavy industries over labour-intensive small-scale industries, higher education over primary education, and & 'Urban Bias' over rural. Precisely, the failure was a result of over-reliance on the 'trickle-down' of the big projects, industries, educational institutions, and settlements. The trickle-down, on the other hand, is explained by Stiglitz (2002) as an 'article of faith' which realises only with certain preconditions. The Nehruvian economic policy, based on the Western ideas of development, severely ignored the economic potential of the primary sector (agriculture, forestry, and animal husbandry) and labour-intensive industry (village and rural industries), and ultimately the people depending on it. As a result, the farmers, agricultural labourers, craftsmen, and the petty producers failed to increase their status and remained economically deprived. In addition to the above, the neglect of primary education kept the poor villagers illiterate and educationally deprived. Since a disproportionate majority of the illiterate farmers, landless labourers, and craftsmen belong to the backward section of society, they were excluded from the opportunity of social and economic mobility. The Nehruvian model of development further worked as a double-edged sword, particularly for the Scheduled Tribes. On the one hand, it kept them poor and illiterate; on the other hand, it displaced them for various development projects without proper rehabilitation. They are uprooted in large numbers from their land and traditional sources of livelihood. Pandit Nehru once told the displaced villagers of the Hirakud Dam project in 1948, 'if you are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the country.' Backwardness post-Nehru Regime Realising the above failure of economic policy in uplifting the poor, Indira Gandhi declared Garibi Hatao Programmes, and many Poverty Alleviation Programmes (PAPs) were initiated subsequently. The PAPs may not have any dent on poverty, nevertheless, successfully turned out to be major sources of corruption and commission, so much so that Rajiv Gandhi admitted, for every rupee spent, only 15 paise reaches the beneficiary. The ultimate sufferers are the backward section of the society, which comprises the significant majority of the poor. Other than corruption, economic inefficiency, fiscal mismanagement, and the lack of budgetary discipline reached its peak. In 1991, the situation escalated to a severe economic crisis, and India was forced to accept Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) suggested by the World Bank/IMF to come out of it. The premature acceptance of Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation (LPG) policy became the norm of economic governance, resulting in far-reaching social and economic consequences. It created opportunities (for some), but created risks for the majority, not well prepared for it. Deepak Nayyar (2000) remarked this phenomenon as; globalisation benefits only a small section of the asset-owners, profit-earners, rentiers, educated, and those with professional, managerial, or technical skills. The losers, however, are the vast majority of the assetless, wage-earners, debtors, the uneducated and the semiskilled or the unskilled. The resulting impact was a growing concentration of wealth and economic inequality. Since a majority of the backward section of society falls in the losers category, they are further excluded from the benefits created by globalisation. The SAPs thus result in economic exclusion of the backward section of society. Congress and the Backward Communities The economic sufferings of the backward sections have a direct and intricate relationship with the failure of the economic policy followed during the above-mentioned leadership. As a result, the farmers, the agricultural labourers, the craftsmen and the forest-dwellers failed to empower themselves all throughout the larger period of post-independent India. The Congress party, more particularly led by the Gandhi-Nehru family, has played a decisive role in keeping them backward despite. The backwardness of backward communities and the 'Gandhi-Nehru family' is not limited only to the opposition of caste based reservation by Pandit Nehru, not conducting caste-census by Rajiv Gandhi or the failure to act on Kaka Kelkar/Mandal Commission report, but also reasons beyond that. Four deserve mention here: economic marginalisation of the backward section, failure to provide effective social protection, exposing them to market risks, and educational deprivation of the backward communities. Because there is a close relationship between education and upward mobility, and similarly between income and education, the backward sections remain deprived as income depends on occupation, and education depends on availability and accessibility to it. The lower level of income and the lack of availability of educational institutions prevented the backward sections from economic and educational empowerment. Once they fail to empower themselves, they are failed to be seen in the public offices where human capital and educational achievements become a ticket for entry. The invisibility of the backward section from the public offices or from the 'Halwa Ceremony' is thus a question of lack of their empowerment, the consequence of the failure of 'economic democracy'. Some may call the invisibility of SCs, STs and OBCs from public offices a 'Chakravyuh', or may try to take enormous credit for the recently declare caste-census, albeit doing the least for their empowerment; it may, however, be reduced to rhetoric, and not social justice. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Hindustan Times
28-04-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Grand Tamasha: The transformation of India's welfare regime
In India today, so many political debates are focused on welfare and welfarism. It seems that state after state is competing to offer the most electorally attractive benefits to its voters. The central government, for its part, has pioneered a new model of social welfare built around digital identification and direct cash transfers to needy households. A new book by scholar Louise Tillin, Making India Work: The Development of Welfare in a Multi-Level Democracy, examines the development of India's welfare state over the last century from the early decades of the 20th century to the present. In so doing, it recovers a history previously relegated to the margins of scholarship on the political economy of development. Tillin spoke about her book on a recent episode of Grand Tamasha, a weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced by HT and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Till, who serves as a professor of politics in the King's India Institute at King's College London, is one of the world's leading experts on Indian federalism, subnational comparative politics, and social policy. On the podcast, she spoke with host Milan Vaishnav on what she calls India's 'precocious' welfare regime, the colonial-era debates over social insurance in India, and the pros and cons of the Nehruvian development model. The two also discussed regional variation in modes of social protection and the current debate over welfare and welfarism in India. 'When I describe India's welfare regime as being somewhat 'precocious', I'm actually talking about a certain kind of precocity that really is related to how India bucks what we might have expected at certain historical junctures for a country facing the challenges of economic development that India was,' Tillin clarified. She pointed to two specific historical moments in Indian history. 'The first is in the 1940s, when even before India has finished drafting its constitution and barely a year after it became independent from colonial rule, it legislates on a form of sickness insurance for industrial workers,' she said, adding that India did so before major world economies like the United States or Canada were able to introduce forms of health insurance. 'And the second element [of precocity] refers to another period of political and economic transition in India, that of economic liberalisation, where…unlike many other developing countries that faced structural adjustment somewhat earlier than India, India doesn't see retrenchment of social policies that we see in other countries,' she said. Nevertheless, Tillin's book finds that decisions taken in the early post-Independence era had enduring consequences. 'There's quite a disjuncture at independence,' Tillin argued, citing the birth of contributory social insurance which could have been the kernel of a more universal welfare state. But, 'instead what happened, especially from India's second Five-Year plan onwards, was a very deliberate strategy that India's planners adopted to favour capital-intensive rather than labour-intensive industrialisation,' she said. 'And that decision meant that, right at the outset, India ends with a very truncated welfare state, which protects only a tiny number of workers in the formal excludes the mass of India's workforce from its purview.' Tillin claimed this was a deliberate consequence of the Second Five-Year Plan which, to paraphrase PC Mahalanobis, 'sought to create a model of industrialisation that would protect an island of high productivity in a capital-intensive sector that would be low-employing.' One big takeaway of Tillin's book is that, while clientelism and resource constraints have severely rationed the provision of public goods and social benefits, Indians have engaged in deliberate debates about what an Indian welfare state should look like. She argued that scholars have often overlooked this fact. 'India, for all of its significance in scale and contributions to development theory, has not been so closely theorised as a distinctive welfare regime in its own right,' she writes in her book.
