If multi-party parliamentary democracy means giving the people a wide range of political choices, then there is plenty of it in India. The Indian citizenry can certainly have its pick from numerous political parties, small and large, with a variety of labels. But if voters have to choose with regards to actual content, particularly regarding economic policy, there is hardly any true choice anymore. Indeed, there has been a breathtaking convergence among political parties – less apparent in their rhetoric, but unmistakably clear in their deeds. One could be led to believe that this is the result of the inevitable compromises of coalition politics. But when the same economic convergence takes place in the states of India, there is little room left for any illusion about what is truly going on.
'Economic growth', 'industrialisation', 'development' – these are grand terms that politicians use with abandon. But in the midst of this rhetoric, a simple, crucial question remains unanswered: If a high growth rate necessarily entails a certain type of industrialisation, is this industrialisation then synonymous with development? If development requires giving a different content to industrialisation, we must be able to specify it as part of a new politics.
The type of industrialisation that is accompanying India's recent high growth has three characteristics, which make it unmistakably neo-liberal. First, it is led by corporations. Second, these are mostly private corporations. Third, the role that the government plays at both the central and state level is that of a promoter, an agent of private corporations – not of a regulator between the corporations and the public at large. Each of India's parliamentary parties now speaks this same neo-liberal language. They theorise only to obfuscate and hide the poverty of their economics and politics.
Voters are repeatedly told that sacrifice is needed for industrialisation. But it is invariably left unsaid that such sacrifices need to be borne by those least capable of bearing them, the poor and most marginalised. The corporations, on the other hand, need to make no sacrifice, share no cost. On this point, the traditional 'pro-poor' left and the traditional 'pro-rich' right are completely united. Insofar as the traditional left is concerned, first Singur and then Nandigram has driven home the point that the politicians of this bent are no different from the politicians at the centre of the political spectrum, living as they do on the oxygen provided to them by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank. The cultural nationalists of the Hindutva variety, meanwhile, are tremendously aware of their culture when it comes to vande mataram, but likewise extend their welcome to foreign multinationals when the doors of the boardroom close.