India's Politics:
A view from the backbench
by Bimal Jalan
Penguin/Viking, 2007
William Fulbright's notion of expressing differences in a democracy as a matter of conviction has found fruition in Bimal Jalan's latest book, India's Politics: A view from the backbench. The advantage of being a 'backbencher' is the benefit of a panoptic view – a view that Jalan, the former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, underwrites as an inevitable one for every keen observer of India's economy and politics. This view is reminiscent of a simultaneous use of the methodologies of participant and non-participant observation, and proves the importance of reminding ourselves that, as Jalan writes, "neither democracy nor economic resurgence can be taken for granted".
This new work is a sequel to Jalan's 2006 The Future of India, but can, nevertheless, be read separately. While the earlier book considered "effective governance and responsible politics [to be] of utmost importance in shaping India's economic future", the present volume draws attention to the need to engage in political reforms, keeping in mind the "established tradition of electoral freedom" that India has enjoyed over the past six decades.
Over that time, power mongering, vested interests and vote-bank politics have also become inextricably entwined in India's political structure, accentuating the already growing trend of political opportunism. Eventually, public services also became a casualty. What is democracy worth, Jalan laments, if it cannot address basic issues such as food security and access to civic entitlements? Economic equations have yielded to political ones: it is no longer a question of having faster economic growth to ensure a rapid decline in poverty; it is rather a case of combining votes with patronage governance. All of this must be thought of with respect to the state's inaction, coupled with its insular agenda. Apropos coalition governments (which, since 1989, have become the norm at the Centre), horse trading and defection have compromised the socio-economic objectives of the government, and have led to the steady attrition of political maturity. A direct outcome, the author notes, is escalating corruption. But all is not lost, for India's democratic set-up still ensures space for public discussion and dialogue. It is nowhere but in a democracy that wrong policies can be righted through public pressure and consensus.