As the world’s largest democracy heads to the polls, LSE academics Mukulika Banerjee and Sumantra Bose debate why Indians vote, how this election will differ from previous ones, and what other democracies can learn from India. Read Part One of this e-debate here

Banerjee, Mukulika

Bose, Sumantra

LSE Research Online

2014-4-9What can other democracies learn from India? E-debatewith LSE academicsblogs.lse.ac.uk /southasia/2014/04/09/what-can-other-democracies-learn-from-india-e-debate-with-lse-academics/As the world’s largest democracy heads to the polls, LSE academics Mukulika Banerjee and Sumantra Bosedebate why Indians vote, how this election will differ from previous ones, and what other democracies can learnfrom India. Read Part One of this e-debate here.What issues will inform voters’ choices during this election?Sumantra Bose: The UPA-II government led by the Congress is seen as a comprehensively failed governmentacross the country. If you ask an average person why they are angry, they’ll point to the economy. The economy hasnot tanked by post-2008 Euro-Atlantic standards: the annual growth rate is still 4-5 per cent. But growth has halvedin the last three years, and there’s widespread disappointment that the “India rising” story has been punctured.Sections that are particularly disaffected – such as younger voters who have higher expectations of their countryand their own prospects – cannot tolerate a moribund economy. They believe India could do better. For the middleclass, and even more for poor people, a key issue is inflation in food prices. In past elections, food price inflation hashad devastating consequences for incumbent governments and failure to check this for the last three years is goingto hit Congress very hard.Mukulika Banerjee: I agree with Sumantra that food price inflation is an issue every aam aadmi is touched by, butI’m not sure that growth rates are a key electoral issue. The question the voters are asking is why is there foodinflation? And now they have some answers because of the number of enormous scams that the UPA II governmenthas been involved in. The absolute naked greed of the government has become a major issue. Greed of that kind isunacceptable if not accompanied by some service delivery. The fact that scams have dominated the news aboutUPA II means that for the first we’re having public discussions about crony capitalism, corruption and the corporate-political nexus. For the first time, people like Mukesh Ambani are being named for buying politicians, buying media1/4time. These revelations are making people ask new questions about why fuel prices are what they are. These couldbecome bigger issues that could impact how people vote, but that will depend on how much information can becirculated given that the so much of the media is lazy and compromised.It is also said that people vote in the Lok Sabha elections as if they were voting in state elections. As such, theseelections are a report card of how state-level governments are performing. Thanks to higher economic growth inrecent years, the amount of money coming in to state governments has also been higher. In some states, like Bihar,you see increased public expenditure at state level bearing fruit. As such, performance or non-performance of stategovernments will also be a factor in how people vote.Bose: Mukulika is right that growth rates are not important per se, but the implications of lower growth rates – suchas the drying up of job creation – will matter to voters.The scams too will matter because they have become the ultimate symptom of a sick government and a non-performing prime minister. For the past decade, the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has not been the mostpowerful person in the country; Sonia Gandhi, the Congress party’s leader, has been the final authority. This is atthe root of the outgoing government’s problems. Big corruption scandals are nothing new in India—for example,Congress lost the Lok Sabha elections in November 1989 partly because of the notorious Bofors case. But at noother time in India’s corrupt past have the top echelons of government seemed so completely incapacitated in theface of one high-level corruption scandal after another. This suggests incompetence at best and complicity at worst.The governance issue is not as simple as Mukulika suggests. For example, most people in Bihar, the populousnorthern state, agree that the governance record of the state government led by Nitish Kumar, the chief minister, isgood to very good. Yet Bihar is witnessing a Modi/BJP wave in this election and Kumar’s regional party is likely tofare poorly. Meanwhile in Madhya Pradesh state in north-central India, the BJP is likely to sweep the polls not somuch because of the Modi factor, but thanks to the impressive governance record of Shivraj Chouhan, the state’sBJP chief minister. So while Chouhan is being rewarded for his governance record in Madhya Pradesh, Kumar isnot reaping the dividends in Bihar. It seems there’s something complex going on, a mixture of national and state-level dynamics that can only be explained once the results are known in mid-May.If there’s a national factor at work, it’s the desire for stability at the centre. If a stable government cannot be formedin New Delhi, it adversely affects everyone at all levels of society.What could other democracies learn from India?Banerjee: Let me say make three observations on this point. First, understanding why Indians vote can offer greatinsights into why democracies work. The high levels of electoral participation by the most unexpected levels ofpopulation are an enduring surprise in India. When India chose to be a democracy, people thought it was a historicblunder. But democracy has captured the imagination of the Indian people and knowing why should be of globalinterest.2/4Second, Indian democracy highlights that coalition governments are not a recipe for disaster and that there aremany democracies in the world that have stable coalition governments that see their terms through. There was somuch nervousness when Britain had a coalition government come in, but that would not have fazed Indians.Coalition governments do bring attendant compromises and accommodations. This is a huge challenge that createsa different kind of political dynamic. But given the vast array of people in India, it’s the only way to manage diversity.Third, if I take Sumantra’s message as true and suppose that we do indeed in the name of stability elect BJP’sNarendra Modi as the next prime minister, then the world will have to watch India very closely to see what anintolerant and authoritarian government voted into power can do. Parallels are already being drawn with otherdemocratic settings in which people voted for stability and got fascist governments. Modi is not an unknown entity.He has ruled a large state in India for three terms, and we know how politics is done under Modi—we know whatspin can achieve. After all the hype, the truth is starting to come out about crony capitalism and the high cost of theGujarat development model. We’ve already seen growing intolerance in public conversation about what you can sayabout Hinduism – think of Wendy Doniger’s book being banned – and what impact government-backed vigilantismcan have on gender issues.Bose: The world can learn that the robustness of Indian democracy comes from “bottom up”—it’s deeply rooted.India’s democracy has a multi-tiered structure, and elections to the national parliament are just the top layer. Thestate-level elections and institutions are probably the most important in an era of federalisation of politics. And at thelowest level, India’s democracy is rooted in panchayat institutions throughout rural India, elected in energeticcontests. There are mandatory quotas for female representation of either 33 or 50 per cent – varies across states –in panchayat posts, as well as in municipal assemblies and governments in cities and towns. All this helps foster asense of participation.I agree with Mukulika that the world can also learn from India that coalition governments can work in Westminster-style majoritarian democracies. Since 1996, coalition governments in India at the national level have reflected thediversified political reality of the country, and there’s nothing inherently unworkable about coalitions. Any Modi-ledgovernment would still be a coalition government and that would be some check on the apprehensions Mukulikaraises. Another very important check would be the regional party governments in many large states.But India’s real watershed election may be a few years down the road. This national election has become dominatedby the massive anti-incumbent mood and the desire for a stable government to replace the Congress-led coalition.3/4This is the context of Modi’s apparent appeal to many Indians. The office of the prime minister of India has beendegraded over the past decade in an unprecedented way. It’s in this context of a toothless – at best ineffective andat worst absentee – prime minister that the projection of an apparently strong-willed, decisive alternative figure hasacquired some traction. Modi’s rise has much more to do with the discredited decade-long Sonia/Manmohan regimethan with Modi’s claimed qualities. While Singh’s tenure was meant to facilitate the rise of Congress scion RahulGandhi, Sonia’s son, it may instead have facilitated the rise, in the short term, of Modi.Mukulika Banerjee is an Associate Professor in Social Anthropology at LSE’s Department of Anthropology andauthor of “Why India Votes?”.Sumantra Bose is Professor of International and Comparative Politics in LSE’s Department of Government andauthor of “Transforming India: Challenges to the World’s Largest Democracy”.Copyright © 2016 London School of Economics4/4

What can other democracies learn from India? E-debate with LSE academics

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