Is India rising? Yes — and No. No one can deny that the Indian economy has achieved a high, and for the time being sustainable, growth rate, its volume of trade has increased manifold and inflow of foreign investment has been substantial. Marked development has taken place in the expansion of industry, improvement of agricultural output, and high-tech scientific advancement, its singular achievement being the great leap forward in the creation of a huge highly trained manpower base. However , critics insist that these facets of India’s growing economic power are not reason enough to count it among the ‘great powers,’ as long as its vast majority of people is forced to live a life of misery and deprivation, and in particular its rural society is not enabled to outgrow feudal oppression, and social discrimination.

That fruits of development must trickle down to the common man is a lesson that the ruling elite in New Delhi should have learnt in the wake of popular rejection of the BJP’s prescription for ‘Shining India’ in the 2004 elections. And it was not incidental that the Communists and their fellow travellers have been the big gainers in popular support in their areas of influence, while the man hailed by the Americans as the icon of market reforms could not hold his ground in the state of Andhra Pradesh, because when he was trying to outbid Bangalore in information technology, poverty-stricken farmers in his state were committing suicides. The fall of Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra is a classic illustration of what is wrong with India’s passage to development.

India is a potential great power. Its inbuilt assets — size, population, location, history and culture, natural resources — qualify it to become a player in global affairs. Rich in land, water and minerals, it has been since ancient times the destination of foreign invaders — from the Aryans to the East India Company — until its ruling elite pronounced its own imperial urge. On the eve of Agni missile’s launch, Indian President Abdul Kalam lamented that for 5,000 years the Indians had let foreign invaders walk in without any resistance. Now it was time to change this mindset by building a security system which could defend the country, he said. It was, however, a different matter that India’s missile programme was far more ambitious than required as a deterrent against foreign aggression.

Jawaharlal Nehru saw India playing a leadership role in the Third World. Non-alignment was not entirely a product of a doctrinaire analysis of world affairs, no matter how radical was the terminology used to rationalise staying away from the neo-colonial order. Nehru was more of a pragmatist than an idealist and perceived non-alignment as his ace to improve India’s bargaining counter. He largely succeeded in maintaining India’s equi-distance from the two power blocs and thus secured for his country a place of prestige and influence in world affairs. At the height of the ‘cold war’ when US secretary of state John Foster Dulles was building a chain of military alliances across the world to contain the communist menace, and had pronounced with arrogance that ‘neutrality was immoral,’ Nehru had the audacity to call his bluff. He emerged as a world leader primarily because he could demonstrate that India could not be taken for granted by anyone. He was the star of the show at the Bandung Conference of Afro-Asian countries in 1956 where he along with Chinese prime minister Zhou Enlai proclaimed ‘panch sheela’ as the charter of peaceful co-existence among nations.

Nehru’s faux pas was to follow soon as he locked horns with the Chinese over Tibet. According to critics he violated his self-proclaimed prescription for foreign relations to play the American game in the wake of the revolt in Tibet and ended up giving political asylum to Dalai Lama and associates. The 1962 defeat in the border war with China was personal humiliation for Jawaharlal Nehru.

Indira Gandhi who inherited dynasty’s empire a year after Nehru’s death was a cut-throat power wielder. The ‘iron lady’, as she was called after she invaded East Pakistan, wanted to reign supreme not only in India but also in the entire region. Browbeating small neighbours into submission became the hallmark of her policy. And her success in playing the regional policemen, while western powers looked the other way and did not mind her Soviet military connection, was a good enough reason for her to believe that the road to India’s great-power status lay through a military build-up.

The Pokhran testing of a nuclear device in 1974 was a veritable signal of India’s power ambition under Indira Gandhi’s rule. That she wanted India to be acknowledged as the dominant power in South Asia was manifest in what was termed the ‘Indira doctrine.’ Emulating the US ‘Monroe doctrine’ which had forbidden outside powers to interfere in Latin America, South Asia was proclaimed India’s backyard where New Delhi’s concurrence was required for any foreign power to get involved in any bilateral matter. India’s emergence as a ‘regional superpower’ was facilitated by a foreign policy described by critics as ‘big brother chauvinism.’ Pakistan was the only stumbling block to India’s supremacy in the region and had the will and the capability to resist being reduced to a client-state status.

Introduction of market reforms

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The evolving global scenario which saw the break-up of the Soviet Union and thus the end of cold war followed by worldwide ascendancy of market forces necessitated a change in New Delhi’s outlook on foreign relations and economic development. The Narasimha Rao-led Congress government which came to power in 1991 initiated the process of New Delhi’s reorientation and restructuring of priorities. Although India did not entirely shift its focus from ‘guns to development,’ it deviatd from ‘Nehruvian’ path of economic development to introduce market reforms in the command economy. Privatisation, de-regulation and decentralisation of public enterprises began while multinationals were allowed access to Indian market with a boost to setting up joint ventures.

The BJP, which came to power after a two years interlude of the United Front rule, had no reason to alter the World Bank prescription for enhancing the growth rate as introduced by Manmohan Singh as finance minister in Rao’s government (1991-96). Despite some initial resistance from an ultra-nationalist faction which called itself ‘Swadeshi,’ the BJP-led coalition accelerated the pace of market reforms. In the 2004 elections it entirely relied on its economic performance, which it claimed was ‘spectacular,’ to win votes. ‘India is shining’ was prime minister Vajpayee’s battle cry as he went to the polls vowing to lead India to the path of progress and prosperity. Although the Indian voters did not buy the BJP’s plank for development, Vajpayee’s six years in office had paved the way for New Delhi to articulate its ‘imperial urge’ in clear and open terms. In the wake of the 1998 Pokhran nuclear explosion India demanded entry to the ‘elite nuclear club’ as a matter of right, and called for making India a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

How close is India to attaining a world-power status is a matter of controversy. The western powers, in particular the US, are prone to conferring de facto recognition to India as a global actor. A school of western scholars is overtly supportive of India’s ‘economic miracle,’ calling it as spectacular as the pace of China’s economic development. However, some critics smell a rat in such overplaying of India’s economic achievement. It is not an objective assessment they say but a partisan approach coloured by India’s adherence to the World Bank model for development. Hyping up India’s economic achievement they say is deemed all the more necessary in some quarters because they wish to bring home the message that rapid development is possible in a democratic society. Comparisons with China’s development are therefore made not for academic reasons but with a wilful motive to project India as a counterweight to China.

Those who hold a brief for India’s ‘great leap forward’ to progress and prosperity say that it is now poised to reach a higher position on the world scene than at any previous time. The Indian economy has over the past decade grown at an average of around 6 per cent annually, and 8 per cent per year over the past three years which is among the fastest rates in the world. And it takes credit for an emerging middle class, increasing gross domestic product (GDP), exports, employment and foreign investment plus a roaring stock market, low external debt and large foreign exchange reserves. While acknowledging that it has not yet matched the financial performance of China, some analysts say India shows ‘more long-term potential for rapid growth.’ No one denies that there are critical roadblocks to India’s development, and much of the nation remains a picture of rural poverty.

Islands of progress

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The US News And World Report⁽¹⁾ says that the gap between the city and country is keenly felt in places like Gurgaon — a suburb of Indian capital New Delhi, which has become a ‘renowned home of international call centres, business processing operations, and information technology firms, while the country is still plagued by deep poverty and backwardness.’ But the bitter reality of acknowledging that lopsided development has resulted in the creation of ‘islands of progress in an ocean of backwardness’ does not deter some enthusiasts from calling India’s economic growth even more impressive because it is driven by a fraction of its population. It is amazing they say how a tiny percentage of the populace (less than 1%) has spearheaded its move towards a higher standing in the world order. One wonders what makes them overlook the fact of history that this has been the classical mode of capitalist development.

It has been argued that India’s ‘intellectual capital’ is a decisive variable in its development. The high-tech service sector which now makes up half of the GNP (the other half being agriculture with 25 per cent plus manufacturing 25 per cent) will enable India to march into the ‘information age’ sooner than other nations. Scientific and information technology companies from around the world have opened research and development labs in India —more than 100 in the past five years. Software development has therefore become a mainstay of India’s new economy, as businesses worldwide rely on India for customer service, as phone calls from around the world are directed to call centres in Indian cities such as Bangalore. Top American companies have been sending their IT work to India and there is no indication of a slowdown in this trend. Pharmaceutical bio-technology research is among the other developing markets.

India’s highly trained manpower — in particular graduates from business institutes — are in high demand among multinational corporation. The market value of Indian talent has gone as high as to be comparable to graduates from top American business schools, such as Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth (fetching a salary ranging from $75,000 at Indian firms to $200,000 outside the country).⁽²⁾ A case for India’s higher ranking in the world order is not complete without referring to its high priority for improving its military capability. There is nothing to write home about India’s indigenous defence production, barring the nuclear and the missile programmes. Following the May 1998 nuclear testing India has been pursuing a full-fledged nuclear weapon programme. According to The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, India has since the summer of 2004 when additional nuclear-missile tests occurred, “earmarked $2 billion annually to build 300 to 400 weapons over the next five to seven years.⁽³⁾ In 2005 India announced plans to build the first aircraft carrier ever by a developing country and to lease two nuclear submarines from Russia. The Americans have openly discussed the sale of naval vessels, combat aircraft, patrol aircraft and helicopters to India. India has also acquired Awacs (sophisticated monitoring system) from Israel, and according to L K Advani, (when he toured Israel as deputy prime minister), Indo-Israeli defence cooperation has extended to the nuclear field.

Going great guns

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Newsweek’s Indian-born editor Fareed Zakaria is among those who believe that India is ‘going great guns.’ Talking about Indian extravaganza of public relationing at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he says “the marketing slogans wouldn’t work if there were no substance behind them.”⁽⁴⁾ According to him while China’s rise is already here and palpable, India’s is still more a tale of the future, but a future that is coming into sharp focus. He refers to a study by Goldman Sachs which predicts that in 10 years time India’s economy will be larger than Italy’s, in 15 years it would overtake Britain, in 2040 it will become world’s third largest economy, and in 2050 it will be five times the size of Japan’s, and its per capita income would have risen to 35 time its current level.

Fareed Zakaria is even impressed by what he calls ‘here and now.’ The Tata group, he says, is a ‘far-flung conglomerate that makes everything from cars and steel to software and consulting systems, and its revenues grew last year from $17 billion to 24 billion.’ Another noteworthy development, according to him, is automobile parts business which is made up of hundreds of small companies and has increased its total revenue from $4 billion five years ago to $16 billion, with General Motors alone likely to import in 2008 $1 billion worth of auto-components from India. Despite being poorer than China, India has produced dozens of world-class companies like Infosys, Ranbaxy and Reliance. The distinct advantage is attributed to the fact that India has, unlike China, a real and deep private sector.

American scholar Stephen P. Cohen believes that ‘India seems ready to take its place among the world’s leading nations,’⁽⁵⁾ but it is not a great power in the classic sense since it cannot challenge American military or economic strength. According to him India was since its independence poised on the edge of two very different futures. On one side lay greatness and on the other, collapse. The spectre of collapse has passed, he says, and India is emerging as a major Asian power, joining China and Japan.

Driving factors

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Deutsche Bank Research in its report, ‘India Special’, in May 2005, enumerates the factors that drive India’s growth:⁽⁶⁾

Growing labour force

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Over the next 10 to 15 years, the model suggests a big portion of India’s population will be within the working-age group, implying a significant increase in the supply of labour. This advantage is likely to remain for a long period since the dependency ratio (i.e. the share of population either younger than 15 or older than 64 years) will decline steadily.

Human capital

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Apart from a steady growth of labour force, development of ‘human capital’ is another driving force. Substantial improvement in the literacy rate has taken place. During the past five decades from 18 per cent in 1951 it rose to 65 per cent in 2001. However, there are glaring gender and regional disparities. For instance, in 2001 Bihar had a literacy rate of 33 per cent while Delhi had 75 per cent literates. However, it has managed to create ‘pockets of excellence’ by producing high-quality skilled workers. It posseses a large pool of scientists, trained IT specialists, technicians, and engineers many, if not all, speak English fluently. There are roughly 380 universities, and 1,500 research institutes, from which 200,000 engineers, 300,000 technicians, and 9,000 Ph.Ds graduate every year. The Institute of Management Development (IMD) report on global competitiveness ‘ranked India first in the world in engineering capabilities and second in availability of skilled labour.’ The declared government priority is to achieve 100 per cent literacy by 2020.

Rising integration into global trade and investment:  Prospects for greater world integration are promising since a political consensus is being reached on the need to further liberalise trade and capital account restrictions. Negotiations have been taking place with China, Singapore, Thailand and other Asean countries to expand trade agreements and gain further access to world trade. The potential for foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to India seems considerable. For example, leading executives of multinational corporations ranked India 3rd at Kearney’s 2004 FDI confidence index.

Huge potential for investment in infrastructure: According to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, India requires a total of US$ 150 billion in the next few years to finance its infrastructure development (rail, airport, seaport). The government has laid out long-term investment plans for infrastructure projects and established roadmaps, thus allowing investors to structure projects and conduct feasibility assessment appropriately and consistently with their time and risk profiles.

According to Deutsche Bank (DB) research report India’s economic transition has been unusual, as it appears to have ‘skipped the industrialisation phase and advanced immediately to a service-sector led economy which now constitutes about 50% of the GDP.’ What makes India’s development even more unusual is the relatively constant share of employment in each sector. The agricultural sector still employs the majority of the workforce, comprising 60 per cent of the total. The services sector employs just 25 per cent of the total labour supply. IT represents a small fraction (less than 5% of the services sector. The most prominent subsectors which have grown rapidly as a result of economic liberalisation, are business services (which includes IT but as a minor percentage), communications and banking. Needless to say, the manufacturing sector has lagged behind which according to critics is a serious handicap for India’s growth. Manufacturing they say would provide India with a much needed source of sustainable growth and would contribute to reducing poverty. It calls for improvement in the skills of rural population, so that a more educated rural population will find it easy to move from farming to more productive areas.

The DB research forecasts an average growth rate of total GDP of 5.5 per cent per year for the period 2006-20. The size of Indian economy will almost triple between 2002 and 2020. Thus it will become equivalent to 40 per cent of the US economy and three times the size of the German economy in 2020. According to the DB research report the following industries are expected to benefit from further market deregulation and internationalisation: textile, pharmaceutical, automobile and banking. In conclusion Jennifer Asuncion-Mund in the DB research states that notwithstanding obstacles along the way, India’s integration into the global economy and ensuring transformation of the country are here to stay. The pace of transformation will ultimately depend on the “will of the India population and the vision of its leadership.”⁽⁷⁾

Overblown success story

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Ironically, there are more sceptics in India than abroad about the myth of India’s leap forward to development. Some of them have reservations about the mode of change while others dispute the projected outcome of reforms. Quite a few critics, in particular left-leaning analysts, are prone to seeing India’s passage to development as an overblown success story. For instance, Pankaj Mishra writing as a guest columnist in Hindustan Times ⁽⁸⁾ lampoons the euphoria over Lakshami Mittal’s takeover of Luxembourgian steel company Arcelor which prompted India’s leading business newspaper Economic Times to proclaim, ‘For India, it is harbinger of things to come — economic superstardom.’ ‘In recent weeks,’ Mishra says, ‘India seemed an unlikely capitalist success story as communist parties decisively won elections in state legislatures and the stock market fell nearly 20% in two weeks.’ According to him Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself debunked the fiction of ‘economic superstardom’ by conceding that ‘only a small minority of Indians will enjoy western standards of living and high consumption.’

Pankaj Mishra represents a school of thought which believes that a ‘roaring capitalist success story’ is not an accurate estimate of India’s strength, since the ‘business-centric’ view of India ‘suppresses more facts than it reveals.’⁽⁹⁾ Notwithstanding whatever reduction in poverty levels has recently taken place, nearly 380 million Indians still live on less than a dollar a day, and India still ranks 127, just two ranks above Maynmar, more than 70 below Cuba and Mexico, on the Human Development Index. Market reforms have focused on creating private wealth rather than expanding access to healthcare and education. Despite India’s growing economy, 2.5 million Indian children die annually and facilities for primary education have collapsed in large parts of the country. In the countryside where 70 per cent of India’s population lives, according to official reports, about, 100,000 farmers committed suicide between 1993 and 2003.

The urban-oriented economic growth, according to Mishra, has caused sufficient resentment among those left behind to contribute to the eruption of communist insurgencies in some of the most populous and poorest parts of north and central India, and thus the government is no longer in effective control of many districts where communists battle landlords and police. The potential for conflict — among castes as well as classes — also grows in urban areas where India’s cruel social disparities are as evident as its prosperity. India’s economic growth has been mainly jobless, as only 1.3 million out of a working population of 400 million are employed in the information technology and business processing industries that make up the so-called new economy. What has not yet occurred in India is a ‘labour-intensive manufacturing booms’ of the kind which happened elsewhere in the world to mark economic growth. Unlike China, India still imports more than it exports.

The BJP-led coalition was a singular victim of self-deception as it exclusively relied on ‘India is shining’ as its election plank in 2004 on the assumption that its market reforms were a roaring success story of progress and prosperity. Thus ‘Hindutva’ was put on the backburner to highlight the magic of India’s ‘miraculous’ economic growth rate. The popular response was a stunning rebuff, even though critics said the electoral verdict was not a rejection of market reforms. For whatever reason the BJP-led coalition was voted out of office in 2004, the message was loud and clear that the people were not convinced that they were on their way to progress and prosperity. And if the people did not see themselves as stake-holders in development, the government would not receive the kind of popular support it requires for the success of its economic policies. Small wonder the Congress-led coalition has been quite conscious of averting a single-track development strategy by overlooking the imperative of going an extra mile to alleviate the misery and deprivation of the ‘have nots.’ The communists have been trying to act as ‘watchdogs’ for social justice.

Rich-poor divide

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The rich and poor divide is perhaps the most conspicuous roadblock to progress and prosperity for all, and not a kind of development which remains bogged down in creating ‘pockets of affluence.’ Given the mode of capitalist development, market reforms will inevitably lead to growing economic disparity — the rich will grow richer and the poor will find it harder to make both ends meet. But a sea change has occurred since classical laissez-faire was the order of the day in the capitalists world. And the emerging rich nations are now expected to pay attention to human resource development and share the fruits of prosperity with the common people. As long as India suffers from the malaise of mass poverty and unemployment its economic growth, even though it may be called ‘phenomenal,’ will remain a dubious indicator of progress and development. What is required of India’s economic growth is a discernible improvement in the quality of life of the underprivileged masses.

In order to qualify for transforming the rhetoric of ‘India is shining’ into reality the minimum pre-requisite would be to provide basic amenities of life to all citizens, in particular, job opportunities, healthcare, education, roads, water and electricity, etc. It was indeed quite revealing that critics underlined three issues — roads, water and electricity — which they said mattered to the people in the 2004 general elections. If safe drinking water is not available to millions, India’s economy is hardly entitled to be called ‘shining’. The social inequality is far more glaring in rural India where 70 per cent of the population lives and great many of them have not for ages seen a modicum of improvement in their living standards. The poorest of the poor are the landless peasants who work as share-croppers for landowners, largely in the most populous states of UP and Bihar in North India, and are hardly better off than the medieval serfs bonded to the feudal lords.

The Naxalite-led peasant rebellion which had stolen the pro-poor thunder from the traditional communist parties in the early seventies but was put down in West Bengal has now surfaced in several areas of North India. Naxalite groups are actively engaged in organising armed uprisings in Bihar, Jharkand, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. The inability of the administration to cope with ‘class war’ in Naxalite controlled areas of control in the countryside has marginalised the state apparatus as the thakurs (high-caste landowners) in Bihar have arrogated to themselves the right to sort out the rebellious peasants. Thus a private army called ‘Ranbir Sena’ set up by the landlords has been fighting running battles with Naxalite-led peasants, while the law-enforcing agencies have virtually been bystanders. The writ of the state has more directly been challenged by Naxalite factions, in Andhra Pradesh in particular, as People’s War Group and the likes of it have attacked police stations, robbed banks, snatch weapons, and killed a good number of government functionaries.

Agrarian crisis

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The urban-rural divide in India has been highlighted by what some economists call an ‘agrarian crisis of unprecedented scale.’ Anita Gill and Lakhwinder Singh, writing in the prestigious Economic and Political Weekly, argue that lower yields, rising cost of cultivation, a mounting debt burden and dipping incomes of cultivators have plunged agriculture into a crisis of unprecedented scale.⁽¹⁰⁾ According to them, the economic trauma is translating into mental trauma and the ever hardworking Punjabis are now being forced to admit defeat to the extent of ending their own lives. Efforts to cope with the crisis by farmers organisations, political movements and even some state-led moves have not met with success. Suicides by farmers, says EPW, were first highlighted by the media in Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. But then came reports of suicides by farmers in Punjab, which were perturbing and quite unexpected in such a prosperous region.

In Punjab, suicides by farmers became a public issue since the mid-1980s. The state government itself has admitted that 2,116 have taken place since 1986, according to the Chandigarh-based daily Tribune. This could just be the tip of the iceberg as ‘many more cases might have gone unreported, if not unnoticed.’ Most of the suicide victims were illiterate and from backward districts of Punjab. There were multiple causes of their desperation but indebtness figures most prominently. Money was largely borrowed from moneylenders and failure to pay back loans caught the borrowers in a debt trap, besides facing harassment by lenders, they were haunted by the threat of arrest and the prospect of losing their land.

Commenting on the slow pace of human development in India, Kevin Watkin, of the UN Human Development Report office, says what is holding India back is that social justice has been let off the agenda. While glitter hides misery the ‘real India’ has been forgotten. According to him this is a country defined by division. ‘Inequalities exist between economically dynamic states in the south and the slow growing, impoverished north, between urban areas and the agricultural ones, between rich and poor and between women and men.’⁽¹¹⁾ Economic reforms and global integration he says has done little to break down these divides, with the result that ‘high growth rate has been grafted on mass poverty.’

Caste discrimination

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What adds to the misery of the rural poor is India’s stratified caste system which has been described by some critics as oppressive a social division as apartheid was in South Africa. Although the hierarchical caste differentiation is no longer as rigid or discriminatory as it was fifty years ago and the low castes have now gained a modicum of freedom and affluence, the stranglehold of the elite high castes has not been broken in India’s rural society. Wherever land reforms were not seriously implemented land is owned by higher castes who function like ‘satraps in their fiefdoms,’ such as the thakurs in Bihar and UP, and treat the low caste tillers on their lands as their ‘subjects’ whose livelihood, freedom and honour is dependent on their goodwill. It was not long ago that the lower castes were called ‘untouchables’ and secluded from the elite society to the extend that they were not allowed to worship in the same temples, fetch water from the same wells in the village, and Brahmins would want them to turn their backs when they passed by so that the menial ‘untouchables’ wouldn’t look in their face.

Much water has flowed down the Ganges since social discrimination had closed all doors of mobility or integration on the lower castes. Some of them — the high and middle ranking lower castes — are now fairly well off after having secured access to jobs, business, professions and politics. However, at the bottom of the social order — the lowest of the low castes, now called Dalits, could still be described as the ‘wretched of the earth.’ In the countryside they are hostages to the caste system — oppressed, exploited and humiliated with impunity by the elite castes. India’s democratic system has given them the right to vote and equality before law but they may find it hard to freely go to the polling stations or register a complaint in a police station since the administration is a party to the caste nexus which has traditionally been sustaining the status quo. In a hard-hitting critique of the disgusting reality of ‘manual scavenging’ which is still being practised despite an act of parliament banning it, India’s leading news magazine Frontline called it ‘India’s shame.’⁽¹²⁾ Needless to say, those who did the meanest of jobs, all of them Dalits, live miserable lives as the most ‘untouchable’ Indians. In 2002-03, the union ministry for social justice admitted the existence of 6.76 lakh people who lift human excreta for a living, but most states denied having scavengers when a petition was filed in the supreme court, claiming most of them had been rehabilitated in alternative professions⁽¹³⁾ Manual scavenging has not been done away with, says Frontline correspondent, because the issue is beyond poverty, indifference, lack of awareness or reluctance to switch from traditional practices, and is ‘rooted in caste as surely as the caste is rooted in the nation’s psyche.’

In another story in the same issue the Frontline focuses on caste as a source of conflict with reference to Bihar where it says the government faces an uphill task to move towards, ‘socially comprehensive development.’ A series of incidents, all extreme instances of anti-Dalit violence, it says, shook the state of Bihar in August and September. It refers to two incidents, which got wide publicity essentially on account of ‘shock element.’⁽¹⁴⁾ One of these happened in Ramnagar in Lakhisaral district, where higher-caste men of the village raped six Dalit women at gunpoint because they had not voted for the candidate recommended by the higher castes. In the second incident four Dalit youth were lynched by higher-caste groups at Balbotura village in Bhojpur district accusing them of stealing a buffalo. According to Frontline, there have been many such cases of anti-Dalit violence which remained unnoticed. The police record showed that there were at least 25 such cases in August 2006 alone. The sum total of all this, according to a Patna professor, is that caste imbalances, discrimination and power play remain central to Bihar society in spite of significant gains made by the politics of social justice in the past few decades.⁽¹⁵⁾

Ironically, pockets of ‘caste-Hindu resistance’ have managed to survive in a state like Tamil Nadu where the rise to power of Dravidian parties had demolised Brahmin political supremacy some decades ago. Caste-Hindus of 12 villages covered by four panchayats in Madurai and Virudhunagar districts have hitherto successfully stalled the election of Dalits to the post of presidents reserved for them under the rotational system of reservation under the Tamil Nadu Panchayat Act 1994. In the panchayat elections held between 1996 and 2006, Dalits were not allowed to contest or campaign in the polls by the caste-Hindus who are the landholders in the four panchayats. Dalits in the villages are landless agricultural workers who depend on the caste-Hindu landlords for their livelihood and have been subjected to untouchability in its varied forms.⁽¹⁶⁾ The DMK government in Tamil Nadu has now decided to take up the challenge from the casteist forces of the four panchayats, but misgivings remain about the process being taken to its logical conclusion.

Reservation in jobs

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Reservation in jobs for the backward castes has been considered a substantive measure for the uplift of weaker sections of the society and help them secure a share in the bounty which they cannot manage to get through open competition. However, the ‘quota system’ has become the centre of a major national controversy. In 1990 when V P Singh tried to implement the recommendations of the Mandal Commission which called for enhancing the size of quota for backward castes he almost ended up inciting a ‘caste war’. So furious was the response of the higher castes, especially young students fearing a tougher competition than before to get jobs, that besides mass rallies and violent encounters with law-enforcing agencies, there were quite a few young people who went to the extent of trying self-immolation. Critics said it was a dicey move to win votes and V P Singh had invoked  divisive forces rather than alleviating social inequality. Ironically, the ‘messiah of backward classes,’ did not only lose his job, but also failed to create a support base among the lower castes.

The Congess-led coalition has once again taken up the challenge of reservations for the backward castes, and is now pushing for quotas in central universities and institutes as well as private-sector companies. Critics say it has pushed the envelope further than even V P Singh did, ‘raising the spectre of a divided India.’⁽¹⁷⁾ The ruling coalition they say is aiming at generating votes but past experience shows it will neither uplift the underprivileged nor deliver votes. The corporate sector in particular has been vocal in opposing the push for reservations. Quota in private companies is a political decision which cannot be sustained, it has been said. While acknowledging the need to ‘uplift the socially backward sections,’ outspoken business leaders insist that reservation is not the solution but just an issue raised again by politicians and certain vested interests.⁽¹⁸⁾

Communal factor

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Apart from mass poverty and caste segregation another contradiction which leads to conflict and strife in the Indian society and thus has been an enduring source of social instability is the communal factor. The Constitution says India is a secular state and all citizens who are equal before law have the freedom to choose religion and practise it according to their belief. Hindus have a preponderant majority (around 85 per cent) in India and the religious minorities (Muslims just above 12 per cent, Christians around 2 per cent and Sikhs below 2 per cent) are not in a position to pose a threat to majority rule or its economic power, but the rise of ‘communal forces’, which insist on the subordination of religious minorities to the value system of the Hindu majority, has divided people into hostile camps. Communalisation of politics has led to a policy of raising communal issues and even resorting to violence to grab votes.

The religious minorities have been the victims of a raw deal as they have suffered loss of life, dignity and property in the scores of mass riots triggered by Hindu fanatics, apart from facing the ordeal of enduring discrimination, segregation and suppression. In the wake of Indira Gandhi assassination by her Sikh security guard in 1984, the Indian capital was hit by a massive riot in which more than 2,000 Sikhs were killed in cold blood reportedly by thugs hired by the Congress leaders of New Delhi. The demolition of the historic Babri masjid in 1992 by mandir warriors who vowed to build a Ram temple at the site was followed by violent anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat and Maharashtra. According to press reports ‘Muslim women were paraded naked in the city of Surat,’ and Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackery was found guilty of openly inciting communal violence in Bombay (subsequently debarred from voting by the Supreme Court).

In 2000 communal outfits Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal turned their guns against Christian missionaries in the state of Gujarat who were accused of forcibly converting Dalits and other low-caste tribals. Schools, hospitals and churches were attacked and priests and nuns were assaulted. The incident which received widespread publicity in the press was ‘burning alive in his car of an Australian priest based in Orissa and his son by a Bajrang Dal activist.’ And 2004 witnessed the worst ever spectacle of mass killing of the Muslims in the Gujarat state. More than 2,000 Muslims were massacred by RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal warriors and many more rendered homeless. From all accounts the state governed was involved in the anti-Muslim rioting as the police and the administration in the state was told by the political bosses to stay put when the killings took place.

Critics say the rise of communal forces and thereby communalisation of politics in India has grossly undermined national unity. The religious minorities, in particular the Muslims, suffer from an acute sense of insecurity and deprivation, and are being growingly alienated from mainstream India. Divisive tendencies are on the rise leading to desperate actions for drawing attention to a plight of neglect and deprivation. Following the bomb blasts in Mumbai which killed 200 people in July 2006, well-known Indian columnist Tavleen Singh asserted that “it is a jehad being fought by homegrown terrorists.”⁽¹⁹⁾ The alienation of Muslims in India may well have reached a point of no return is the lurking fear, as more and more young people are being driven to religious extremism, and some of them quite prepared to take up arms to avenge their humiliation. People are beginning to worry, says Tavleen Singh, if the government is capable of defending them against the ‘jehad’ being waged so successfully that if it continues unchecked, it could cause a civil war and worst.⁽²⁰⁾

Insurgencies

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News Delhi has managed to contain the insurgency in the North-East. An uneasy truce has been holding as marathon negotiations have gone on with rebel groups demanding secession. However, the government has not succeeded in reining in all the divisive elements engaged in militant action, and therefore there has neither been an end to violence nor the government been able to enforce its writ in all the areas. Basically the source of conflict in the North-East states, known as ‘seven sisters,’ after the breakup of Assam, has been secessionist movements, but there are other causes of strife, such as inter-tribe friction, or tribals vs settlers contention. North-East of India is predominantly inhabited by poor and socially-backward tribal people who for a variety of reasons have not been incorporated into the mainstream.

Incidentally, a high percentage of them are Christians who were converted by Christian missionaries operating in the area as early as the British came. Hindu communalist groups, like the RSS, VHP, etc, have been accusing the Christian missionaries of fomenting secessionist tendencies. The insurgency in Nagaland or Mizoram, it was alleged, flourished because it was funded and armed by Christian quarters from abroad. The government has also been alleging a foreign hand in trouble in the North-East. At one time the Chinese were held responsible for assisting the rebel groups; the focus has now shifted to Bangladesh which the Indian media insists is the sanctuary where the secessionist elements from the North-East regroup and get armed training. For whatever reason the tribals in the North-East have been alienated enough to take up arms against the state apparatus, it poses a threat to peace and stability of the country.

Some critics argue that the conflict in the North-East affects only a very small minority of people and is therefore peripheral to the country’s development. Nonetheless it is a discord which has to be sorted out to achieve across-the-board even development. As long as pockets of conflict remain, denying some areas the fruits of progress, regional inequality will mar the growth of economy, apart from the compulsion of diverting considerable resources to conflict management which ought to have been spent on the development of human resource.

Impediments to industrialisation

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India’s ‘great leap forward’ to progress and prosperity calls for a rapid and substantive growth in its manufacturing sector which has conspicuously lagged behind. Generating new jobs for the multitude of unemployed and thus moving towards alleviating mass poverty will be hard to achieve without establishing labour-intensive industries and marketing their products, at home and abroad. Among impediments to growth of industry are (i) an underdeveloped infrastructure and (ii) not enough energy available to meet its growing needs.

Critics say India does not have a developed and modern infrastructure — roads, railways, airways, etc — to meet the requirements of a rising great power. Even a newly appointed minister was critical of how the country’s airports were maintained, while despite having one of the world’s largest railway systems, trains were not considered good enough a mode of transport for people to travel or goods to be carried. Vast rural areas are still without roads and people have to walk some miles to catch a bus. Comparison with China underscores the priority it has given in recent years to building superhighways in remote areas, besides accomplishing the incredible tasks of laying a railway track in Tibet to link Beijing with Lhasa. Needless to say, India will have to make a quantum leap in the development of its outdated, or inadequate, infrastructure to become competitive with modern countries.

Shortage of energy is a serious handicap for India’s industrial development. Thus search for sources of oil and gas supply has been a constant endeavour. To secure gas from Myanmar via pipelines through Bangladesh has been New Delhi’s agenda. In January 2005 energy ministers from India and Bangladesh and sat across the lable to consider a proposal for supplying Myanmar’s offshore gas to India via pipeline through Bangladesh.⁽²¹⁾ However, the deal did not come through as Bangladesh was reported to have been asking for more concessions from India than were being offered. The much publicised Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline has also remained a non-starter, even though the Indians were at one stage enthusiastic enough to suggest that the pipeline be extended to South China.

India’s commercial energy demand is projected to increase by 3.8%-4.3% a year through 2020, and its energy demand, both in oil and gas, are expected to double by 2020.⁽²²⁾ Thus India is hard pressed to look for all possible sources of energy, and if gas pipelines diplomacy does not bear fruit, consider other means to meet the growing demand so as to avert what has been called an ‘energy crisis.’ Domestic consumers in almost all parts of India have been victims of irregular electric supply and frequent power-breakdowns for the simple reason that there is not enough power supply for all the people and whatever worth is the existing system it calls for radical modernisation in order to let the people have facilities enjoyed by the citizens in developed countries.

Economic reforms in India, it has been argued, did not generate as many jobs as was expected by policy planners. In agriculture, employment elasticity has dropped to near zero, while it has turned negative for mining, utilities, and social and community services. In most other sectors, including manufacturing, it has declined.⁽²³⁾ The decline in the primary sector employment from 1993 to 2000 was a reflection of the collapse of productive employment opportunities in rural areas. But the pattern of growth over the 1990s did not generate sufficient employment even in urban areas. Thus the decline in poverty (from 1970s to the 90s) was subsequently halted or it slowed down, as was suggested by changes in the pattern of consumption. For instance, per capita foodgrain consumption fell from 476 grams per day in 1990 to only 418 grams per day in 2001.⁽²⁴⁾ Furthermore, it has been held that evidence of improved lifestyles among a minority points to substantially worsening income distribution. What appears to have been grossly overlooked in India’s market reform, as Dr Mahbub ul Haq had pointed out, was to ‘combine the creative energies unleashed by capitalism with social objectives of human development.’⁽²⁵⁾ An Indian scholar conceded it saying ‘what went wrong with our assault on poverty in the past and hence what is wrong with our reforms today is that our planners were interested in growth as the objective and not poverty.’⁽²⁶⁾

Military build-up

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In some quarters India has been hailed as a military power to reckon with, which it is said will also advance its case for recognition by international community as a global player, even though times have changed since standing armies and sophisticated weapons alone were considered a nation’s source of strength and power. However, military build-up is still a crucial variable in international power politics. On the face of it, India has a formidable military apparatus — third largest standing army in the world, a modern airforce, a blue-water navy and above all a missile system capable of delivering nuclear warheads. Small wonder L K Advani, then India’s deputy prime minister, was so carried away by the Pokhran nuclear test in 1998 that he lost no time threatening Pakistan with ‘dire consequences’ if it did not roll back its Kashmir policy. Critics are of the opinion that New Delhi would have surely resorted to nuclear blackmail to browbeat Pakistan into submission, had Islamabad not followed the Indian suit in going nuclear some days later. To establish its hegemony in the region New Delhi did not feel shy of flexing its muscles, a policy well rewarded by the western powers, US in particular, which accorded de facto recognition to India as the ‘regional policeman.’

India’s claim to a world-power status was greatly facilitated by acquiring nuclear capability. It was in the aftermath of the Pakhran test that India demanded entry into the elite nuclear club and began actively lobbying for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. So regardless of the pace of its economic growth, or how close it was to attaining a level of progress and prosperity prevalent in developed countries, India claimed to have qualified for a world-power status. Ironically, the world community did not entirely reject the Indian contention, even though the rationale for its admission to the ranks of a privileged few was cast in the familiar economic idiom. Thus when one talks of ‘rising India,’ one cannot overlook the military aspect of its development. However, behind the facade of India’s growing military power lies the hard reality that its indigenous defence production has virtually been a non-starter.

The hollowness of India’s development is best illustrated by its continuing dependence on import of arms, notably from Russia, to meet the needs of its national security, more so because defence production has been a high priority sector for development since the Indian defeat in the war with China in 1962. New Delhi could be said to have fallen to the temptation of creating ‘pockets of excellence’ at the cost of ignoring overall development of defence production by focusing on nuclear technology and missile development. It is like calling India’s economic growth a ‘monumental success’ on the basis of a breakthrough in ‘information technology.’ In the wake of the 1962 Sino-Indian war critics had lampooned India’s defence establishment, in particular defence minister Krishna Menon for making a mockery of indigenous defence production. ‘We have not been producing anything other than uniforms,’ they said.

Needless to say, things are not as hopeless now as they were being projected in 1962, but there hasn’t been a qualitative change in the production of arms and equipment. The Indians have neither been able to produce a locally made tank or an aircraft. The much talked about project to manufacture ‘Arjun tank’ has been in the doldrums, as countless changes in its design over the years has turned the endeavour to produce the ‘prize product’ into a fruitless exercise. And a similar fate has befallen the efforts to produce an indigenous aircraft for the fast expanding airforce which has been shopping around the world to seek a higher quality merchandise than the Russians can offer. India cannot hope to win universal recognition for what some people call its ‘quantum leap’ to progress as long as it has ‘imperial urge’ but is not able to produce at home the arms and equipment it requires to sustain its military build-up.

Curiously lopsided way

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Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates is impressed by incredible strides India has made in building an information technology industry but warns against a relatively narrow slice of Indian society feeling the benefits of rapid achievements. ‘India may have one third of world’s software engineers, but it is also home to one-third of world’s undernourished children’ he says.⁽²⁷⁾ Edward Luce, South Asia bureau chief for The Financial Times from 2001 to 2005, has a somewhat similar observation to make. ‘India’s economy,’ he says, ‘has boomed in a “curiously lop-sided” way. While it is home to advanced high-tech and manufacturing companies, it still has about 400 million illiterate people and high unemployment.’⁽²⁸⁾ Noble laureate Amartya Sen says that there has been a substantial change in the world’s perception of India which according to him was to a great extent a much needed correction. ‘However, what we have to watch is that the estimation of India as a global player does not become as much in excess of reality now as it was below in the past.’⁽²⁹⁾

How does the world see India’s development was the theme of a survey in an opinion poll conducted by India’s prestigious news weekly Outlook⁽³⁰⁾ Questioned in New York, London and Beijing, 54% people described India as a ‘rising power’ while only 10% thought it could be called ‘global power.’ Whether India should be made a permanent member of the UN Security Council? — 56% said yes and 30% no. On comparison with China, 63% thought China was a better country to invest in as only 23% voted for India; 52% of the respondents were of the view that India could not rival China as an Asian superpower while 38% said it could. Was India capable of overtaking China economically by the end of the next decade, 72% said no an only 16% said yes. Opinions were divided on whether India’s multi-ethnic, multi-religious society could disintegrate into smaller states, as 37% thought there is a small possibility but 32% said it was almost impossible.

Rating India’s development

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India’s paradoxical economic growth marked by curious dichotomies makes the task of rating its development a tall order. Overwhelmed by the emergence of ‘islands of technological excellence’ and the growth of a highly skilled and trained manpower which is internationally competitive, quite a few observers in India and abroad are prone to passing judgements of an economic miracle which has qualitatively transformed India’s pace of development. India is rising fast enough, they say, to join the ranks of ‘great powers’ in no time. The image of an ‘economic superpower in the making’ has been reinforced by a powerful pro-India lobby in the West which calls for acknowledging India’s economic growth as a phenomenal success of the ‘capitalist system.’ Comparisons have thus been made with China’s development to underscore that the democratic option could also produce as good results as a regimented economy. However, critics point to an extra-baggage of social backwardness that India will have to shed in order to enter the arena of modern nations.

A number of snags in India’s economic growth have been highlighted — (i) It has not been a comprehensive growth, but rather uneven and lopsided; (ii) the social sector — job generation, education, health, services like roads, electricity, water supply, etc, has conspicuously lagged behind; (iii) Social change has not kept pace with technology advancement. Primitive thinking and antiquated values and practices are still a crucial variable in determining social behaviours; (iv) it is a conflict-prone society. Communalism, caste difference, rich and poor divide are a source of social strife giving rise to violence as a mode of settling discords. Given the raw deal to minorities, backward sections of the society and the rural poor, a sense of deprivation has set in a process of alienation reflected in insurgencies, and the rise of class struggle in several areas; (v) India’s industrial development is still far from reaching a stage of self-reliance. The manufacturing sector is lagging behind, as it is still dependent on imports for national requirements. For instance, its indigenous defence production has virtually been a non-starter compared to advanced countries. Its infrastructure calls for thorough restructuring and modernisation, and it has to go an extra mile to generate sources for meeting its growing energy needs.

What makes China a frontrunner for a great-power status is not only the pace of its remarkable economic development but also its ability to translate economic growth into raising the quality of life and prosperity of the people. The Chinese themselves acknowledge existence of regional disparities and social inequalities in their country but the saving grace is that their planning for development is geared to achieving what John Stuart Mill would have termed ‘maximum good of the maximum number.’ Market reforms in China have not been a ‘no holds barred’ moneymaking exercise. Multimillionaires have appeared on the scene, and multinationals making huge profits are disbursing to their Chinese employees wages manifold the amount they can earn in the public sector, but the teeming millions have not been driven to desperation, as minimal basic necessities of life have been assured for all citizens. India’s democratic system is said to have saved the day for its economic growth as the multitude of ‘have nots’ as deprived as they were when the market reforms were ushered in, have the consolation that they have the final authority to topple a government by voting it out of power. Nevertheless, the fact remains that fruits of India’s economic growth have not trickled down to the common people. Given its lopsided development some parts of the country are still plagued with famine and mass starvation to a level that the people have to flee en masse from their ancestral homes in search of food, and despite claims of a ‘green revolution,’ impoverished farmers in several states have been forced to commit suicides.

Creating more and more jobs is necessary to contain the process of mass unemployment. And critics have suggested that the new labour force should be drawn from rural areas which suffer from optimum deprivation and backwardness. Dispersal of new industrial ventures would make amends for concentration of development in some areas and if agriculture-related projects are given preference it would generate forces necessary to enable the backward areas catch up with the more developed ones. Human resource development has not received the attention it ought to have for a country on the threshold of becoming an economic power. The Indian prime minister himself acknowledged that the country did not have enough skilled workers. Notwithstanding the emergence of a massive middle class, highly educated and trained in high tech, what is lacking in India is a sufficiently large skilled labour force which can man the industries needed to be established in the days to come.

At one time there were quite a few critics who took a rather cynical view of India’s ability to override the multitude of challenges that it faced from day one. Some of them were led to believe that it may not even survive as one country and break up into smaller states. The ethnic divide, in particular the North-South rift, was seen as having the potential for India’s disintegration. However, much water has flowed down the Ganga since North India could be charged with holding monopoly of political power and treating other areas as its appendage. The overwhelming view now is that New Delhi is quite capable of holding the country together and whatever ethnic, communal, caste or class conflicts exist are manageable. India’s durable democratic system, critics argue, is a cushion that has the capacity to absorb these shocks. However, a functional democracy with an institutional arrangement for transfer of power from one government to another may not be good enough to vouch for a safe passage to securing the ‘prize catch’ of a world-power status.