Regions and the Center in India

Transcription

1 Regions and the Center in India Ashutosh Varshney Conference on Regional Political Economies, Azim Premji University, January 10, 2016

2 Outline Based on Asian Democracy through an Indian Prism, Journal of Asian Studies, November 2015; The Odyssey of an Improbable Democracy in Battles Half Won (2013); and How has Indian Federalism Done?, Studies in Indian Politics, June Attempt to marry three kinds of literature: federalism, nationalism and democracy

3 Mill s Assertion: Improbability of Indian Nationhood and Democracy Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities. Among a people without fellow feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative government, cannot exist. (Mill, Representative Government, p. 384) Elections and referendums

4 Stratchey s Observation: Improbability of Indian Nationhood (2) There is not, and never was an India, or even any country of India possessing, according to any European ideas, any sort of unity, physical, political, social or religious, and that men of the Punjab, Bengal, the Northwestern Provinces and Madras, should ever feel that they belong to one Indian nation, is impossible. You might with as much reason and probability look forward to a time when a single nation will have taken the place of the various nations of Europe. (John Stratchey, 1888)

5 Twain s Anxiety: Improbability of Indian Nationhood (3) India had the first civilization; she had the first accumulation of material wealth; she was populous with deep thinkers and subtle intellects...she had mines and woods and fruitful soil. It would seem as if she should have kept the lead, and should be today not the meek dependent of an alien master... If there had been but one India and one language--but there were eighty of them! Where there are eighty nations and several hundred governments, fighting and quarreling must be the common business of life; unity of purpose and policy are impossible; patriotism can have no healthy growth. (Twain 1899)

6 Gandhi s Response Hyphenated Indian identity. De-link language and nationhood. Even English acceptable as an Indian language I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. Even the English did not have to leave. It is not necessary for us to have as our goal the expulsion of the English. If the English become Indianized, we can accommodate them De-link religion and nationhood

7 Imperative of Indian Nation- Building In retrospect, a fundamental question at the heart of India s nation building: How should one combine democracy and diversity, including geographically concentrated ethnic diversities? India s four well-known diversities: caste, language, religion and tribe. Language and tribe: geographically concentrated. Became the basis of federalism

8 Federalism and Nationhood Three concepts: Nation-states, multicultural states, statenations (concept proposed by Alfred Stepan, Juan Linz and Yogendra Yadav, Crafting State-Nations, Johns Hopkins, 2011)). India, Canada, Spain examples of state-nations. State-nations simultaneously recognize diversity and build unity Diversities not suppressed, but institutionally safeguarded

9 Pride In India, (per cent) WVS 1990 WVS 1995 WVS 2001 SDSA 2005 Very Proud Proud Not Proud Don t know/ no answer Sample size

10 Subjective National Identity, (per cent) NES 1998 SDSA 2005 Only Indian More Indian than regional identity As Indian as regional identity More regional than Indian Only regional identity Don t know/no answer NA NA

11 CONCLUSIONS Indian federalism rooted in twin principles of recognizing diversity and building loyalty towards the larger political community As an experiment aimed at turning a civilization into a nation, the historical odds against success ought to be noted. Instead, failures few and far between. One can still argue that the quality of Indian federalism could be higher and with greater imagination in Delhi, India s federalism could be a greater success. But that claim would not invalidate the proposition that the project of building a nation without erasure of diversities is inordinately difficult and has been a relative success in India.