Jyotirindra Dasgupta analyzes the struggle
between the centrists and those seeking
regional autonomy in India.
The regional explication of the national
project assumed many forms. Its initiatives
boldly reminded the centralists led by the
Nehru vision that their misgivings about the
region's struggle for autonomy; greater
federalization, and democratic rights needed
radical revision. Their contention against
the centralists, though widely misunderstood
in the country and abroad, proved to be the
most valuable resource to reconstruct the
nation and its multicultural ethos whenever
the centralists strayed from the course.
Fortunately, the regional initiatives were
aided by the wider rules of the democratic
institutional system even when the federal
government at the centralists' command was
deployed against them. The system's ability
to incorporate the lessons of the regional
initiatives, even when their contentious
forms looked disquieting signalled an
assurance that augured well for renewing the
foundations of democracy and federalism at
critical moments of national transition.
It would be a mistake to assume that these
regional initiatives for change and their
contentious expressions were necessarily
induced by exclusive cultural territorial,
or ethnic drives. The large-scale
insurrectionary struggles of the communist
movement in the south of the late 1940s,
though unsuccessful unmistakably registered
a note of radical urgency for social
transformation in the national agenda of
development.
When the communist leaders shifted their
strategy in favour of parliamentary methods,
the democratic system in the country
legitimized their national participation at
a time of world history when democracy was
supposed to be in mortal combat with
communism. Going against the grain of the
red scare induced by the advanced
democracies, the Indian system's willingness
to give parliamentary communism a fair trio
yielded an amazing inclusionary dividend.
Within a few years, in 1957, the first case
in the world of a democratic induction to
power of a communist party took place in
Kerala. Thus began a long history of
parliamentary communism in three states of
India that significantly enhanced the
quality of democratic and national
development in terms of national ideological
inclusion and endorsement of radical social
and economic reforms pursued by the
communist governments.
The gains of these reforms clearly benefited
the lower classes in these regions covering
more than 80 million people. If these
transformative gains deepened the social
reach of the national project, the
centralist leaders of the Congress Party
during their decades of control of the
national government resolutely tried to
frustrate them from the beginning of their
tenure of regional power.
Here was a case when the regional
contribution to National development clearly
demonstrated that the centralist right to
speak for the nation in a tutelary voice, as
intended by the then Congress leaders
including Nehru, was indeed unwarranted. The
class emphasis of politics in these radical
states also indicated that the civic content
of a sub-national scale of politics need not
lag behind that of the national level as
practised by the centralist leaders.
The role of the civic dimensions of regional
politics also emerged clearly in the
autonomy initiatives organized by the
popular movements to realize the
reorganization of states along linguistic
lines. As in the case of a systemic
induction of communist radicalism in the
national democratic institution, the
interaction of the popular movement with the
federal government paved the way for a
negotiated reconstruction of the
institutional structure of the federation.
The Andhra case is instructive. The demand
for a separate Andhra state to express the
autonomy aspirations of the Telugu speakers
was not motivated by any opposition to
Indian nationalism. It was basically a move
to reorganize the Telugu speakers, who
during the colonial period remained
dispersed in several administrative units
(mainly Madras and Hyderabad), into an
integrated, autonomous state within the
federation.
But in 1951, the Andhra movement succeeded
in gaining strong popular support across a
wide band of political persuasions. But the
Congress leaders led by Nehru initially
hesitated, then opposed, and finally agreed
to concede the demand after the movement
became desperate and violent.
* * * * *
Some of these issues were anticipated during
the founding moments of the federal system.
Those were the years of centralist
fascination for the magic of planned
economic and social transformation. Not
surprisingly, the initiative for national
planning under central guidance was led by
Nehru and his Congress followers. The
constitutional distribution of resources
left a margin of disadvantage for the states
that gave an opportunity for privilege to
the planners at the centre.
The constitutionally warranted Finance
Commission supposed to safeguard the
financial autonomy of the states accounted
for nearly the same proportion of the total
central transfers to the states as that
determined by the Planning Commission of the
central government (about 45 per cent in the
middle 1990s, for example). Total net
transfers about that time amounted to
approximately 44 per cent per year of the
expenditure of all the states and the union
territories taken together. The average
annual figure registered during 1987-90 was
46 per cent. The discretionary element in
plan transfers gave an advantage to the
centre that violated standards of federal
fairness.
It took several election setbacks for the
Congress Party in the late 1960s to adopt a
more sensible system of allocation of plan
transfers on the basis of population,
relative backwardness, and fiscal competence
of the states to reduce the element of
discretion. The regional voice became
stronger after the Congress Party lost power
in 1977.
However, the idea of a single divisible pool
involving a mandated sharing of gross
proceeds of all central taxes with an
assured proportion of the share for the
states had to wait until 1997 for official
endorsement when a coalition of regional
parties (the United Front) was in power.
The seriousness of the issue was also
recognized by the NDA government when it set
up a commission for constitutional reform in
early 2000 to review, among other issues,
the problem of financial autonomy of the
states. With three more states added in 2000
to the federation, the case for a review may
become more compelling.
The growing importance of regional
authority, and autonomy highlights the
problems of interdependence between the
centre and the states, and also among the
states themselves. The diversity of resource
bases among states raises some questions of
fairness regarding transfers that call for
federal negotiation mainly from the vantage
point of the centre...
What is much easier to notice is the poor
capacity of the states to raise their own
resources. The states in Canada or Brazil
mobilize resources that take care of nearly
80 per cent of their expenditure, but in
India the corresponding figure would be
about 45 per cent. The rapid rise in state
revenue expenditure despite modest increases
in revenue receipts along with persistent
increases in the non-developmental component
of the expenditure, in the 1990s for
example, indicate a trend that is
disturbing.
The subsidies and losses associated with the
public sector enterprises of the states
serve populism by draining away peoples'
resources. Between 1998 and 2000, the
revenue deficit of the states more than
doubled, according to one estimate.
The dependence of the poorest states on the
centre increased, as the lectures on
autonomy became more strident. When these
poorer states make little effort to mobilize
internal resource, they impose a burden on
the better performing states like Tamil Nadu
whose tax effort in the 1990s was 12 per
cent of the state national product versus
Bihar's 5 per cent.
Fortunately, the centrally coordinated
system has continued to work irrespective of
changes in leadership, ideology, or regional
weight in governments providing organized
support for national collaboration. Even
after a marked shift towards liberalization,
the larger share (59 per cent) of the total
public sector outlay in the 1992-97 plan was
accounted for by the central government's
resources...
Liberalization since the early 1990s,
however, has offered a new opportunity for
attracting resources by the better
performing states. A study comparing the
annual growth rate of states (gross state
domestic product [SDP]) in the 1980s and
1990s reports an increase in the degree of
dispersion in growth rates across states in
the latter period. States which experienced
strong cultural autonomy movements turned
out to be some of the best performers like
Gujarat, 9.6 per cent and Maharashtra, 8.01
per cent. They were followed by those with a
record of a communist movement; West Bengal,
6.9 per cent and Kerala, 5.81 per cent.
Some of the worst performers were Uttar
Pradesh and Bihar, two of the largest states
that once were supposed to be the heartland
of the country. They are associated with the
largest bloc of language community
legislators from the Hindi region dominating
parliament and presuming to provide the
centre of national stability and vitality...
The combined effect of political and
economic competition is increasingly likely
to generate a new assurance to cultural
regions and groups who were previously
intimidated by political numbers. This is
not a question of the necessary superiority
of economic numbers. It is an admission of
the importance of new accomplishments by
groups deserving new eminence.
Take literacy for example. Some impressive
strides have been made in the 1990s in this
area by a number of states. While the large
Hindi states have lagged behind the national
average rate of 62 per cent, by 1997, four
states have exceeded the 70 per cent mark
and Kerala reached the level of 93 per cent.
The former insurgency area of Mizoram did
still better, in 1998, at 96 per cent.
In fact, following the stabilization of
autonomous statehood in the northeastern
area, six out of seven states attained the
highest rate of growth of literacy in the
nation. Between 1991-97, when India's
average rate of growth of literacy was 9.8
per cent, Meghalaya attained the rate of
27.9 per cent. These performance records
should intimate impressive possibilities of
social and political mobility displacing
older patterns of dominance in the course of
national development and generating new
inclusionary assurance.
Political competition contributing to
inclusionary assurance can also be turned
inward within each cultural community. The
logic of inclusion that drives activated
citizens to struggle against entrenched
groups can also induce them to question
their own community leaders or privileged
strata.
Democratic opportunities and electoral
contention are often feared by insurgent
leaders precisely because their own
followers may challenge their credentials to
speak for the whole group or community.
Particularly, after a community gains
autonomy, the less privileged members may
seek to realize their own rights of access
or even self-determination. The sub-regional
movements for a separate Telangana in the
1960s or for the separation of the Andhra
region from Andhra Pradesh in the 1970s
clearly indicates how the claims of
collective solidarity can induce significant
segments of cultural communities to go their
own way to seek autonomy. The switching of
identity claims in such cases is
interesting.
Paul Wallace is
Professor of political science at the
University of Missouri, Columbia.
Ramashray Roy is a founder member and former
director of the Centre for the Study of
Developing Societies, Delhi.
Jyotirindra Dasgupta is Professor Emiritus
of political science at the University of
California, Berkeley.
This book focuses on the parliamentary
elections in India in 1999. It serves as a
prism through which the writers examine the
changing nature of Indian politics since
independence. The multiparty alliances which
have evolved involve political fusion but
also encourage fission, with power rather
than ideology dominating coalition strategy. |
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