THE assassination of Rajiv Gandhi focussed world attention on the growing crisis of India's largest party, the Congress
Party. Oliver New interviewed Achin Vanalk, author of The
Painful Transition (Verso, London), a Marxist analysis of
India's post independence development, and a leading member of the Inquilabi Communist Sanghatan (ICS — Indian section of the Fourth International), about the contemporary
Indian political scene.
HEN Rajiv Gandhi was that democracy in India might be in danger. Why is personality so important in Indian politics?
Bourgeois democracy in India has a plebiscitary character. This applies particularly to the centre parties. Unlike the parties to their right or left, such as the
Hindu fundamentalist BJP mass Communist Parties, these are not cadre-based parties.
The Congress Party had a firm structure from 1947 — by which time it was already a sort of government-in-waiting
— to the mid 1960s, when the rural bourgeoisie began shifting its allegiance and looking for alternatives, such as regional parties, to defend its class interests.
Other factors have played a role in Congress' decline: the death of the old Congress leadership, the waning credibility of the "Congress socialist" ideology; the rise of the middle castes (who make up the bulk of the Hindu population) and the rise of the upper echelons of these castes.
Congress remains the only truly national party, but its increasingly come to rely on the charismatic leader, who symbolizes the nation.
It is the weakness of the Congress Party rather than mere dynastic ambition that led Indira Gandhi to groom her sons Sanjay and Rajiv for power. The party relies on a leader of national stature, but after
Rajiv's death it has none, even compared
• What are the major ideological differences between the parties?
One crucial issue is secularism, and there are also important differences in terms of economic policy. There are
Socialist forces in Janata Dal and in the
Congress Party, which, along with the
Communist Parties (CPI and CPM), are clearly to the left of European social democracy. They still believe in public ownership of the means of production as a means of managing capitalism.
International Viewpoint #209 • June 24, 1991
The other parties are clearly shifting to the right, away from the old statist consensus of Nehru's time. Thus the difference on economic policy between the left and the centre is more pronounced than that between the centre and the right.
Secularism is a very important dividing line in Indian politics today. Congress and Janata Dal are basically secularist, although they opportunistically communal politics from time to time. They are not so committed to Hindu nationalism as the BJP, however.
• Is international non-alignment out of the window now?
There are two aspects to Indian non-alignment: firstly, it was a response to bloc politics and an attempt to gain greater room for manoeuvre on the world stage by the Indian bourgeoisie and state than would have been the case with a straightforward pro-Western stance.
Secondly, it involved an emphasis on the greatest possible national independence. This second element retains force today. Nonetheless, since the collapse of bloc politics, non-alignment is now being questioned and there are voices calling for closer links with the US.
An example of imperialist pressure was seen during the Gulf war. The US did not need bases in India - it had them in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. However the US insisted on its planes being allowed to refuel at Bombay airport. Clearly the US were trying to make a political point — "this is the new world order, and you have to be in it." When this became known there was a big furore. The left, the Congress Party and others opposed Chandra Sekhur's acceptance of this diktat and mobilized against it, and indeed the government was forced to back
The US is not, in fact, sure what relationship it wants with India. South Asia is not the priority for US policy, which is much more concerned with West Asia [the Middle East] and Europe.
If they really want to improve relations the Indian intervention in Sri Lanka for
At the same time, even after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the US has maintained its strategic relationship with
Pakistan, which is important in relation to
West Asia, and there are indirect links between the US and secessionist forces in
Punjab and Kashmir, which are also supported by Pakistan. In this situation Indian non-alignment still has some life in it, and, in any case, it is not clear what would
The foreign policy doubts to some extent go hand in hand with the shift towards economic liberalization. The private sector is becoming the leading edge development which does not mean that it is the domi-
The current Sekhur Plan is the first economic plan in which the public sector has not been expanded. It is the first plan in which the private sector has been allowed to encroach on areas previously a public sector monopoly, such as power supply
• India has finally had to borrow from the International Monetary
Fund (IMF). What is the difference between the Indian ruling class and most other Third World ruling class-
The Indian ruling class is exceptionally autonomous and powerful in Third World terms. Even now, there is no place for the representatives of foreign capital in the ruling coalitions. It would be misleading — as it would be for some other countries such as Brazil and Argentina — to characterize India as "semi-colonial". India has the most autonomous economy of any Third World country, built in spite of
A good way of grasping this historically is to see how India got out of the debt trap. Before the 1980s there were only two (or maybe three Third World countries that had escaped from the debt trap - India, South Korea and perhaps Indonesia. India was in the debt trap in the 1960s, and was very dependent on US support. However the South Korean and Indian roads have been very different.
South Korea got out by orienting itself towards the world market, with a massive export drive. India, on the other hand, shut itself off from the world market - its share of world exports actually declined as it got out of the debt trap, which gives an indication of the scale of India's
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INDIA Gandhi
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Burma ble has not paid off.
For the second time now, India is on the verge of falling into the debt trap, and this time it will be extremely difficult to get
A review of the past seven years shows the seriousness of the situation. Since 1983 the foreign debt has risen five or six times and is now $60-$65bn. In seven years some $50bn have been spent. To this should be added the billions in remittances from Indians working income from which peaked in 1985/86. The biggest item on the imports bill has been capital goods. This has mainly taken the form of components which are assembled into consumer durables for the domestic market, creating debt dependen-
Now the IMF will tell the Indian government to carry out a deflationary policy. At the moment there is no danger of a massive inflow of foreign capital taking over Indian industry, not because the Indian state would not welcome it, since in the Short term it would help the debt situation, but because the foreign capital does not want to come in. It has other priorities, such as east and south-east Asia and, of course, eastern Europe. Even today India is the destination of only a seventh as much foreign capital as China.
• Can India get out of the debt
It's possible. It all depends on how far the Indian state can act against the immediate interests of the ruling class coalition and its middle class social base. essential for the agrarian bourgeoisie, and the imports of capital goods are the lifeblood of substantial sections of the industrial bourgeoisie, while the middle class wants to be able to buy imported consumer goods. To get out of the debt trap it is necessary to attack these social groups. The state might be able to do this but it is highly unlikely.
The element of luck should also not be overlooked. If a significant amount of oil can be found then India can buy itself another ten or 15 years. But, although it seems the oil should be there, nobody has yet been able to find it. This issue shouldn't be overlooked - crude oil is India's single bulk import, the second • Why then, given the scale of the economic crisis, is the political focus on the question of communalism rather than on the economy?
No matter which party comes to power
India Oman S. Yemen 1 Thailand 2 Laos 3 Vietnam Mauritius 4 Cambodia Madagascar INDIAN OCEAN
1,000 miles
- the left being only a pressure group — there would be no big change in economic policy. All the contenders, V.P. Singh, Chandra Sekhur or even the BJP have more or less the same economic programme. All will pursue liberalization, and make some attempt to tackle unemployment and inflation. The key difference is on secularism.
• For a long time there have been tensions between the central Indian state and the regions. been tied in with the national question, involving demands for regionautonomy. At the same time there has been a big rise in communal tensions and Hindu nationalism.
There are a number of separate questions here. Is India a multi-national state? Certainly it is multi-lingual, multireligious and multi-cultural. Is it perhaps a multinational nation state? Clearly an adequate answer requires much theoretical work on what constitutes nations, nationalities and nationalism.
In my view — which is expounded in nation state with different nationalities. But it would be more accurate to see India as potentially rather than actually
A comparison in this respect can be made with the Soviet Union, which is today a multinational state that is, at least, in part, breaking up. Russia/the Soviet Union was a multinational empire. India, under Britain, was not a multinational empire, and is not a multinational
• In the Soviet Union you have an economic crisis and at the same
South Korea Taiwan - Hong Kong Philippines Malaysta ndonesia
Australia New Zealand democratic openings (glasnost) - and an explosion.
In India you have an economic crisis; there have been poverty stricken millions since 1947 and you also have had institutionally-guaranteed democratic rights to a far greater extent than in the USSR
The national movements in India are largely confined to the periphery, in the north and north-east. The national movements in Kashmir and Punjab are focussed more on religious than linguistic identity.
As for communalism, once you recognize that in India religious groups have been the strongest candidates for nationhood, it becomes clear that there is a strong link between nationalism and com-
The social forces behind the rise in communalism in India both before and after independence are the role of the state and the competition between rising Hindu and Muslim middle classes. The rising rural Hindu middle castes - rich farmers or aspiring capitalist farmers — have played a crucial role. Other factors have been at work, among them reactions against the alienating effects of capitalist modernization. The problem is to explain how these factors have led to an expansive Hindu
Hinduism is not like the semitic/ prophetic religions; there are no fixed texts, founders or sites, and thus no doctrinal foundation for an exclusive common identity of the kind provided for in the semitic religions. Thus creating a Hindu fundamentalism is not straightforward, although the process, and its partial victories, is itself dangerous.
• What about the specific situaattitude and that of the ICS to the 7 tions in the Punjab? What is your June 24, 1991 • #209 International Viewpoint
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In the late 1970s and early 80s, the Indi- an bourgeoisie took a decision to reinte- grate themselves into the world market, hoping that liberalization of imports, par- ticularly as far as capital and electrical goods were concerned, would strengthen the Indian economy's capacity to compete on the world market. However, this gam-
INDIA independence struggle there?
The ICS completely opposes the Khalistani movement for a separate Sikh state in Punjab. We do not consider the Khalistanis as a nationality and certainly not as an one. This is not to say that Sikhs have not suffered severe repression and state terrorism. But when you talk of an oppressed nationality you have to look at the historical context based on economic, social and political oppression over
This is subject to change: thus the Tamils may not have been an oppressed nationality in British times. Subsequently, as a result of cumulative oppression they have undoubtedly become one today.
The situation of the Sikhs is different. As yet most Sikhs do not support Khalistan. However, we argue that state terrorism is not the answer to pro-Khalistani terrorism. The ICS opposes both and calls for the formation of an anti-communal front which will oppose both Hindu and Sikh communalism, and both state and pro-Khalistani terrorism.
• The Khalistanis seem to have had some success in driving Hindus out of part of Punjab, and this is likely to be reflected in the voting.
No, in fact, the predicted migration of Sikhs and Hindus to and from the Punjab did not take happen. What has happened is a migration of Sikhs and Hindus from the (predominantly Sikh) rural villages in the Punjab to the urban areas, the population of which has been predominantly Hindu.
The Sikh political party, the Akali Dal, is a significant force but there are many factions and it is under pressure from militants on its margins. Punjabi Hindus mainly support Congress - the BJP is not yet important there.
Unless there is a significant sympathy vote for Congress, the vote is likely to swing in favour of Akali Dal. The assumption behind Rajiv Gandhi's Punjab Accord was the idea of a move away from the Khalistani perspective; in return the Akali Dal would be the dominant party in the Punjab government. The militant pro-Khalistan groups outside Akali Dal are themselves divided and lack a centralized authority.
There is also a problem of class; the dominant social class in the Punjab are the rich farmers, who would not benefit from a separate state. Thus it is not clear that there is some inevitable roller-coaster towards secession there. There is a different sort of national question in Kashmir, where the repression is very severe.
• What has happened to the Indian left over the past few years?
The most important question is how the crisis in eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union has affected the Stalinist and 8 India (CPI) has gone along with Gorba- The Communist Party of International Viewpoint #209 • June 24, 1991 chevism, and should not perhaps be called a Stalinist party.
There are five stable or growing mass Communist parties in the world - the Portuguese CP, the South African CP, the Nepali CP and the two Indian CPs. Everybody expects the two latter to hold their electoral support, although they may lose out a bit because of the sympathy vote.
The CM is more deeply affected by the events in the Soviet bloc than the CPI, being more dogmatic. The main effect is ideological. The Soviet government is far more concerned about the Indian government's foreign policy than about intervening in Indian affairs via the Communist Parties. In such a situation, where the Soviet Union's main interlocutor is the Congress Party, there can be no question of the CPs simply being the tail on the
The crisis of Stalinism has not modified the CPs' foreign policy outlook. have seen and continue to see American imperialism as the crucial destabilizing factor in South Asia. While the CPI has welcomed glasnost and perestroika, the CPM, on the other hand, has rejected them. At the same time the CPI finds some of the concessions made by Moscow to the US difficult to swallow, and has not accepted them.
In fact, the differences between the two parties are not so big, and there is nothing that fundamentally stands in the way of them merging — which would constitute a step forward for the working class, particularly from the point of view of building a secular left front.
The left in general has failed to take the communalism and secularism, leaving the issue in the hands of bourgeois figures such as V.P. Singh.
• The CPs are in power in West
Bengal, and Kerala in the south.
What has happened there?
The situations in West Bengal and
Kerala are different. The Muslims in
West Bengal do not vote for the Muslim
League, but for the CPM. In Kerala the
CM has played communal politics. It opposed an alliance of the Muslim
League and the Kerala Congress, a communal organization representing Christians and others, but this was in fact an attempt to appeal to the majority Hindu
The Maoist groups in India organize about 35,000 cadres, split between seven or eight parties. The best of them represent the militant cutting edge of the struggles of the most oppressed people in India. They face a number of difficulties now. The Tiananmen massacre was a big shock, leading to a reassessment of the whole question of the nature of the Chinese army. Some groups have begun to reassess the question of Stalinism, but this strikes at their roots.
They also have problems now with defending the notion of socialism in one country, although of course their belief that the Soviet Union and other such contries have been state capitalist provides some protection against reality. The most important question is that of socialist
Here there has been an impact from the autonomous movements, especially the women's movement; some of the Maoist groups want to gain credibility here and involve themselves, though without truly respecting the principle of autonomy.
In fact the current which was committed both to the autonomy of the women's movement and socialism is now rather subdued, with the socialists and the autonomists pulling in different directions. There is a need for a socialist feminist perspective both against the Maoist "party/ women's organization" approach and the view that the women's movement consists only of a series of single issue campaigns.
The women's movement has had an impact on the far left, and on the CPs where the question of internal regime and of taking up women's issues is now being raised. The social base of the Naxalite [Maoist] groups is the tribal societies, where there are far more egalitarian relations between women and men than in non-tribal Indian society. Thus there is already a strong involvement of women in
• What do you expect to happen in the elections?
The big question is how well the Hindu fundamentalist BJP do. The better it does, the more it appears as the wave of the future, and the more the centrist organizations waver on the question of secularism.
This will remain true whatever the realignments in the centre.
The Congress' electoral plank of stability is now obviously a much more powerful attraction than before. The BJP has shifted its line, putting itself forward as a disciplined party of stability, rather than simply being anti-minority. They say that, since Congress cannot stabilize itself, how can it be expected to stabilize the whole country, a slogan that does not lack
The fiasco over Rajiv's wife Sonia, who was pressured, but refused, to take over the leadership of Congress, has lost the party time, and only now are they getting their act together. The Congress Party, with no obvious leader, has to close ranks and establish a collegiate leadership - which is what they are doing now. They have a caretaker leader without a strong regional base, who will not necessarily be the prime ministerial candidate if Congress are the largest party.
The big question in these elections is whether, given the economic crisis, the
Indian centre parties can resist the pull away from independence on the world scene and the challenge to secularism domestically. *
Disaster and underdevelopment
T HIS cyclone is only the most
recent of a series of natural disasters that have struck the country over the past 20 years. In September 1988, overflowing rivers flooded two thirds of the country and killed more than 1,500 people. In May 1985, a cyclone submerged several islands in the Ganges delta, leading to between 20 to 50,000 deaths. In 1970, another cyclone left an indelible mark on the country, killing 500,000; this disaster exposed the inability of the Pakistan government to organize a rescue operation and gave added impetus to the struggle for independence which led, the following year, to the creation of Bangla-