ARGUMENTS HALF MADE
A compilation that does disservice to the author’s deep knowledge of Indian democracy
Ashutosh Varshney’s new book, Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy, is a compilation of essays written over the last two decades on democracy, the role of religion, caste and language, and economic development in India. Unfortunately the book does a disservice to Varshney because the earlier ideas reveal their many weaknesses, while the more recent work that has been included is far more impressive.
The opening essays of the book show that India’s democracy is not merely procedural, but is deeply embedded in the political culture of the country. The major insight is that the country that the Congress inherited in 1947 benefited greatly from the British institution of provincial legislatures from the late 19th century onwards. This gave the Congress an understanding and experience with democratic politics that was later entrenched even deeper under Nehru’s stewardship. The Muslim League, and the areas it inherited, did not benefit from such an experience, thus the practice of democracy has come harder for them. This idea is somewhat undermined by Varshney’s close focus on Jawaharlal Nehru.
Nehru was a latecomer to the Congress, and even if his role after Independence was massive, it was not always decisive. Varshney writes, “One shudders to think what kind of political system India would have evolved into if [Subhas Chandra Bose or Vallabhbhai Patel] had dominated the 1940s and 1950s.” But Patel did dominate the 1940s, nobody was as responsible for the creation of modern India—from the subjugation of Junagarh and Hyderabad to the reorganisation of the princely states and their administrative and legal systems. Considering the role of the bureaucracy in shaping India, it is impossible to ignore Patel’s handiwork.
Such confused thinking abounds. Varshney writes about Vidia Naipaul’s idea of a “sacred geography”, which serves little explanatory purpose in politics. Were Goa and Sikkim sacred when we absorbed them, or did they become sacred after their absorption? Is the Aksai Chin, the Northern Areas, or Mount Kailash in Tibet “sacred geography” too? Does rule by Pakistan or China invalidate sacredness? Varshney’s classification of Indian Muslims as either exclusionist and syncretic is as useless for political analysis. How does one judge an important political organisation such as the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, a movement that opposed to syncretism, vociferously in support of democracy? Varshney condemns Indira Gandhi's “secular arrogance” in trying to manipulate Bhindranwale, contrasting it to Nehru’s handling of Master Tara Singh. But Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s actions in supporting the ulema and the Khilafat Movement against Jinnah share a greater similarity with Indira’s methods than her father’s. Was such manipulation of religious actors and sentiments okay because M.K. Gandhi was doing it, not Indira?
The later sections are better argued. Varshney cogently and convincingly argues that democracies are better able to sell direct interventions ( NREGA, land reform) than indirect ones (long-term market-based economic reforms). Nehru’s direction that the state capture the “commanding heights of the economy” created a class wellplaced to resist reform, which pursued wealth generation as a result of the capture or manipulation of the state. Such insights make Varshney’s regular work rewarding to read, and it is disappointing that there is so little of it in this book.