Changing Nature of The Indian State

Changing Nature of the Indian State:
Decline of the Institutions and Rise of the Mass Society

By Koshtub Vohra, MPP#11
The Republic of India, formed as a modern nation state in the postlude of the Great War, has been a
remarkable experiment in the political arena of the modern era. Its ride to modernity becomes
significant in the wake of its history as one of the early civilizations which rose to great power early on
and sustained them over cyclical periods before finally collapsing under the modern might of the
British Empire. From the Indus Valley to the British Raj, India has given ample reasons for it to be at
the forefront of human imagination across the world. Thus, when India got its freedom, the world was
looking at it with wide eyes, ready to applaud it in its successes and dismiss it altogether in its failures.
In posterity, it could be said that India received both quite evenly and frequently. However, to the
perceive the transformation of the Indian state from a pre-modern traditional state to a modern nation
state is a story of continuing and thriving change that needs an erudite study. Here we would briefly
deep dive into the socio-political history of India from the pre-modern era to the modern era and its
perceivable future using two phenomena - the commentary of stalwart scholars on Indian polity as a
base. We would significantly focus on the emergence of a Mass society and Institutional
declinechallenges - two significant challenges for the that the Indian state faces in the contemporary
timesworld. FinallyIntermittently, we will conclude with some comments on the opportunity window
forinterweave the behavior of the Modi government in respect to the above two strands. Without
professing any scholarly insight on the topic, we would also explore the corporatization of the nation
state and what struggles it holds for us in the future. Towards the end we hope to create an organic
narrative on the changing nature of the Modern Indian State that builds into the prospective future.

The slow transition from Pre-Modern to Modern
The slow transition from Pre-Modern to Modern
The pre-modern Indian state cannot be defined via the euro-centric definition of a modern state
(Kaviraj). It started as the Indus Valley civilization and continued across millennia as a culturally
diverse society deplete of any clear socio-cultural demarcations. Political structures rose in the form of
village communities, regional kingdoms and great empires across varying territories and periods but
failed to latch themselves to the society in the form of permanent structures with effective control and
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power. The pre-modern state, hence, functioned from the margins of the society and had a minimal,
rent-seeking relationship with the society (Kaviraj). Therefore, the societal structures such as caste
system became more powerful in the traditional state as compared to any form of political
organization. The vestigial forms of this power imbalance continue to exist even after thousands of
years and affect the effective influence of the state over the society. Traditional way of life continued
hitherto unhindered by any political force till the time of the British Colonialists. The British took great
pride in asserting their universal sovereignty (a feature they had perfected in their European homeland)
over the society, a feature they had perfected in their European homeland..
In posterity, Traditions however had a much stronger might in India than what the British had
fathomed. Iit could be said that the British decision to not rule from the margins (like its predecessor
states) eventually led to its own downfall in the subcontinent. Post-1947 and under the leadership of
the Congress, the modern Indian state (or a prospective claimant of that status) went about inclusive
development by continuecontinuingd with the colonial exercise of sovereignty over the society but did
so with tact and understanding. Nehru, was able to fashion all the state policies under the garb of
consensus by using the congress system to expand and internalize dissent (Kothari). Hence, States
actions were accorded legitimacy by its democratic nature. However, Nehru was ideologically isolated
within his own party and had to rely upon the bureaucracy and other state institutions to deliver on his
development agenda. The congress evolved into an institutionalized system to connect the grassroots
with the center, the bureaucracy ran the government as well as industries, the armed forces remained
subservient to the political authority, the parliament functioned as a forum for decorous deliberations
on issues of national import, etc (Kothari).
The sudden demise of Nehru and the ever increasing democratization of the erstwhile marginalized
sections of the society created an active political space being hotly contested by numerous new parties,
each representing one of the traditionally marginalized classes, each vying for greater power and share
of the states resources (Nandy). Indira Gandhi and subsequently her son Rajiv Gandhi, both, spent a
considerable amount of their time in consolidating their power. Paradoxically, the more the power was
consolidated at the center, the more powerless the central leadership felt in delivering reforms (Kohli).
This gradually led to disenchantment of the public from the state and the political processs ability to
deliver on their demands. The decay of the state machinery and political disenchantment
leddisenchantment led to the emergence of cult politics in India. Policies and realism got shoved away
by populist leaders and /politics for mass consumption. Around the same time, the forces of
economics, expanding state and mass media created a mass society, centered on the image of anon an
urban middle class Indian as the ideal (Nandy). The societal aspirations, choices and lifestyle were
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being molded around this ideal image to homogenize the society as a market, not just for consumption
of goods but also for consumption of populist politics. Therefore we see more and more Indians
proscribing to the urban middle class aspirations of a high paying private job ( even if not unstable,
unlike the past) that pays them enough , makes them work overtime andto spend enough on
consumption of the marketed goods and services. Such working class consumers are the staple for the
Corporate elite. However what is nature of the corporate control on the economy? Is there an unholy
alliance between the fourth estate and their corporate stakeholders? Are the corporate elites being
alienated by a mass society in a volatile balance of power? What is the role of the common populace in
a developing a cogent and realistic development agenda amidst such an evolving setting? Is realism in
politics an idealistic thought or the preponderant responsibility of the electorate? Or is it primarily a
function of the state institutions? We would explore some of these questions in the following section
using Mass society as a reference.

Emergence of a Mass Society
Traditionally, India has been a society fractured by multiple social stratifications, be it cultural,
economic or even hereditary. It is curious to notice that unlike many other factious cultures that
originated in harsher, resource scarce regions, our society developed in a resource rich territory but still
showed barely any signs of unity. However, even though the public wasnt united, it was tolerant and
believed in co-existence for most part of the history.
AAs discussed beforeearlier, societal structures had a stronger grip on the society than political
institutions. Prominent amongst these was the caste system. Unlike the western concept of class based
social stratification, Indian caste system was more complex due to its hereditary nature and the hardly
allowed anynon-emphasis on socio-economic mobility. Thus generations of people from a
family/caste/clan continued to remain stagnant and live under the same conditions of wellbeing and
continue with the same form of employment as their forefathers a thousand years back. The caste
system, Jaati as it is called in the vernacular, was divided into four sections: Brahmin, Vaishya,
Shatriya and Shudra. Status, power and economic control were varyingly disaggregated within these
four castes. Thus each group remained satisfied in their own right. Over time, even these castes
became exclusive and a large population was left outside the fold of these social structures, fondly
called as Harijans by Gandhi or Dalits in common parlance. The possibility of any discontent and
resentment against imbalanced social benefits was curbed by providing group incentives and not
providing agency to the individual. The concept of Karma became the doctrine for pseudo-causal
explanation of individual destinies and political fortunes.
Thus even though a thousand years passed and various forms of political organization such as village
communities, regional satraps, massive empires, global colonies and even the modern state republic
came into existence, the caste system remained adaptive to change and molded itself into the latest
form of organization. Universally, a change in the Modes of Production (MOP) has led to a change in
the social stratification (Marx). However, in Asiatic societies like India, the changes in the MOP have
come in slow and infrequently to sustain a change in the social stratification. The caste system could
always outpace any gradual change in the MOP. Thus far it has been able to stay put in our modern
state. Liberalization of the economy in 1991 has by far beenwas the strongest impulse of innovation
and modernization in our history, . uUnleashing of the private entrepreneurship and capital flows
unleashed to create a wide spread change in the MOP (Vanaik). Wherever such reforms in MOP have
takentook place, there has was also been a decline in the essentiality of the caste system. Thus iIt could
be said that the caste system is itself now in a conflict with another rival, more western system the
class system. The class system, by virtue of being aligned to capitalism (the unstated driving principle
of post-liberalization state) as well as for being characteristic of greater mobility within the social
strata- especially between the lower and the middle class, has made quick inroads into the society. This
is not to say that Class system has gained dominance over taken over Caste system as the dominant
means of social stratification but to say that in the least, it has definitely questioned the significance of
the caste system in the modern era. It would also be interesting to note here that the caste system was
itself conceptualized on the base of a Vedic form of class system, the Varna system. In this sense, the
society is moving back to the original idea of socio-economic societal stratifications that gone astray
and become hereditary.
To put thingsuse a in contemporary perspectiveillustration, the 2014 General Elections in India were
heavily focused on the need for a larger urban middle class (the ideal constituents of a mass society).
Congress and BJPPolitical parties had both aggressively campaigned for the need to get 70 crore
people into the middle class (Congress), for the need to build 100 modern cities (BJP) and the overall
pitch of the campaigns that was centered around more urban jobs and numerical development. On a
more societal level, the discourse around the Chai wallah controversy over Modis past as a tea seller
could be a ready litmus for the emerging power of class over caste system. People accepted Modi as
their leader even if he had humble beginnings in the lower class as an ordinary tea seller. The
romanticization of such discourse, in an uncanny resemblance to the discourse on American Mass
society as a land of opportunities, only reinforces the phenomenon of Mass society in India.
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However, It will also be crucial to ask if thiss the mass society is all as pervasive and has made inroads
into all sections of the Indian society. Is it as much an authority overin the rural parts of India as it is in
the urban context?? While on the face of it the homogeneity in urban and rural India may seem like a
farfetched reality, the fact is that there already is a homogenization of aspirations. The desire for
certain kinds of consumption patterns and certain kinds of jobs, as was once being aspired for by our
urban middle class based on their international exposure, is now being increasingly aspired for by our
rural population based on their access to media and national exposure. The rise of consumption in the
rural areas due to the increased flow of funds via schemes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee (MGNREGS) could be extrapolated to derive that further employment in rural
areas would only bring more people into the consumerist middle class and thereby into the mass
society. However, to say that there is a uniform homogeneity in the rural and urban parts of the country
would be over simplifying things. There is a sense of dynamic homogeneity of aspirations between the
rural and the urban Indiabased on ad-hoc alignment of aspirations.
. There are many areas such as need for increased urbanization and employment that the rural and
urban India would agree upon due to similar aspirations. There are other areas still such as expenditure
on expensive schemes such as MGNREGS and Food Security Act where the rural population would be
at extremes with the urban middle class. Thus, any analysis of the Indian Mass Society needs to be
treated with sensitivity.
As discussed in the beginning, aA mass society is of high utility for the corporations (Nikhil Dey). In a
struggle reminiscent of the empires battling with the concept of nation states, the corporations are in an
early form of struggle with states over absolute control over resources and wealth. Their might has also
started influencing policies through over and under the table means,means; case in example the leaked
Nira Radia tapes and the example of Walmarts lobbying for access to markets via FDI in Retail. Is
sSuch corporatization is leading to high inequalitiesy? Most certainly. Inequality indicators show
moderate to high inequality in India. Taking into consideration the various allegations about the
inaccuracy of the data provided by the Indian Government, we should assume the inequality to be at
the higher end. It would be interesting to take up the case of United States of AmericaSA in brief here.
USA is one of the most liberal capitalistic states in the world with a very advanced and oldest
democracy. The worlds largest corporations are American and amount to a huge fraction of the global
GDP by themselves, running into a few trillions and equal to the budget of scores of developing
countries. Shockingly, 1 percent of the American population (mostly corporate class) has more money
as than the rest of the 99% put together. A series of two, highly secret Citi Bank reports, "Plutonomy:
Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances." and "Revisiting Plutonomy: The Rich Getting Richer"
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were leaked in 2005 despite fervent attempts by Citi Bank to prevent so. The report, pPrepared for
circulation among the banks Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWI), the report made no secret
about the fact that the top 1% of the Americans are grossly over-paid and the rest 99% merely amount
to a class of workers and consumers that keep the economic engine lubricated. Fortuitously, The major
wealth creation and consumption is being done by the 1% and their control is supreme over the
economy. The report further stated strategies for increasing the already obscene wealth of these
UHNWI. The report also made some comments about risk management. But what could probably be
the risk for those sitting on gargantuan piles of cash? tThe report also stated that the biggest risk came
from the ordinary worker whose economic power may be minuscule but who holds equal voting power
as the rich elite. This iteration of the democratic power, especially from the mouthpiece intellectuals
catering toof the ultra-rich corporates, is especially reassuring for those in the developing economies.

The public, in a democratic set up, can chose to actively participate in the decision making of the
country and offset any powerful lobby by the corporates (Nikhil Dey). There are active measures by
the civil society in India to institutionalize pre-legislative consultationsnts in theduring policy making
(Aruna Roy) process. The corporates have organized themselves into Federations and Industry bodies
such as ASSOCHAM, FICCI and CII to lobby for the interests of the Indian Industrialists with the
government. The public needs to balance this lobbying by civil society engagements in an organized
fashion.
A popular conception is that the Media is the decorous forum for all civil society engagements.
However, as tThe News of the World phone hacking scandal, Nira Radia tapes, tTakeover of Network
18 by Reliance and the biased media coverage of the 2014 General Elections is anything to go by, then
iaccord us t can be safelty in assuminged that the fourth estate is not life-blood of democracy anymore.
It has been highly diluted by populist coverage of non-consequential glamour world and the one sided
discourse on policy matters. Income pressures and corporate control have compromised the sanctity of
the Media as a space for democratic discourse on policy matters. Recently, the Trade in Services
Agreement or TISA was signed formulated by over fifty countries in complete secrecy till it was
leaked by Wikileaks on their website. TISA, once in force, would further liberalize the global financial
services market (despite of deregulation being the central cause behind the 2008 market failure) and
cover more than 68% of the world trade in services. The eminence of such an agreement in the global
world is self-evident but still, nNone of the media channels in any of the countries (almost all of them
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democracies) discussed the treaty with their constituents in any public forafor a despite of its
prominence.
All these examples clearly illustrate the institutional decay in place in the states of the world, including
and in specific to India. The parliament has become synonymous with disruption, debate happens in a
macabre fashion on media channels, government provides for the vote banks or for the corporate elite
who fund the parties, the parties themselves have become the common place for anyone seeking power
and patronage to go about their business unhindered by law and order, law and order itself is either
hardly enforced or enforced with delay and without conviction. We will speak further about
Institutional decline in the next section. However this much is clear, the society is in a state of flux and
is aspiring to homogenize itself into a mass society, the partial version of which is already coming into
force. The change in aspirations also means that the Institutions that deliver on behalf of the states are
now out of sync with people. We have been moving for far too long between the policies of class
patronage and populism and need to move to a more realpolitik based approach to strategic
development that stays put for a longer period of time. To create such a strategy, we need a common
vision that truly enunciates the aspirations of our society for the state to deliver upon. Hence a critical
task to be done is for the public to engage within themselves in a democratic framework and come up
with a cogent and inclusive developmental vision. However, the onus for facilitating such a discourse
also lies upon the institutions of the state.

Institutional Decline
Even though Indias rise to modernityModern Indian State was marked by strong strong planning and
state institutions buts, under the charismatic leadership of Nehru, these state institutions started
implodinged under their own weight of their own ideological leanings after Nehrus abrupt demise
(Kothari). The decay in the institutions started right after Nehrus death but their eventual state of rot
came in only after dDecades of populist politics by Indira and Rajiv Gandhi led to decay in the state
institutions. Institutions became objects of play in the game of caste politics and patronage struggles.
There is an urgent and eminent need to bring back strategy and realism into the politics of India for the
states to regain itstheir vigor. Democracy as a framework would continue to, and legitimately so,
influence the policies of the state and its institutions and often drags the pace of development.
However, It will be a huge mistake, however, to singularly attribute democracy as the cause behind the
continuous flip flop in policies from one extreme end to another. Democratic forces of daily nature
(should) should only influence minor course correction in an otherwise definite path to development.
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The legitimacy to the path policy can be accorded by following proper and proactive democratic
process while laying formulating it, but the state needs to be given its legitimate due constitutional
authority in terms of guiding us to follow itexecution. Modi government has given us a pleasant
surprise by going against its business friendly image and vetoing the World Trade Organizations
Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) in order to protect the rights of the poor whose food security for
the poor again cannot be compromised under global and corporate pressure. It may beis alleged that
the stance was taken consideringinfluenced by the need for a strong rural vote bank in the vote bank
politicsupcoming assembly elections. But the fact that the Congress governmentUPA, despite of its
much advertised commitment to food security act (for popular vote gains), went ahead with this
agreement but the Modi government did not, implies that there are more than just populist politics at
play. However, should these decisions be left to the goodwill of the leadership? Or should there be an
institutional ethos that systematically protects realist national interests?
The parliament as an institution has been reposed with the duty of legislating, discussing and executing
(via the cabinet) the development of our nation. However, it has been clearly failing as an institution in
the last several decades. Shashi Tharoor argues in his cover piece in Tehelka magazine onabout the
Parliament outliving its utility and the need to bring in an executive President. He states that our
parliamentary system has created a unique breed of unqualified legislators, largely unqualified to
legislate, who have sought election only in order to wield (or influence) executive power. It has who
have produced governments obliged to focus more on politics than on policy or performance. It has
distorted the voting preferences of an electorate that knows which individuals it wants but not
necessarily which policies. It has spawned parties that are shifting alliances of individual interests
rather than vehicles of coherent sets of ideas. Historically, It has forced governments to concentrate
less on governing than on staying in office, and obliged them to cater to the lowest common
denominator of their coalitions. Indianthe ParliamentParliamentary system was not selected on the
basis of its operational efficacy but on the belief that not only does it represent the plurality of India
but also because it was the natural and automatic choice for a generation of leaders who had admired
the way of the British parliament with awe and desire. A Member of So when the opportunity for
freedom came, the leaders opted for Parliament as their natural and automatic choice. The Parliament
(MP) in Britain utilizes a legislatorrepresents for less than a lakh votersthan lakh voters
representation. In India, the figures are astronomical withre is one member of the parliamentMP for
every 16 lakh people! We have a staggering 903 registered parties to represent Indian populace
(especially in the wake of a mass society) but leaving aside populist statements, we still see no
apparent ideological difference between the implemented policies of any of the major parties once in
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power. The fact that the principal reason for entering Parliament is to attain governmental office
creates four specific problems. First, it limits executive posts to those who are electable rather than to
those who are able. This not only depresses the efficacy of the policy execution but also makes
legislations suffer. Most laws are drafted by the executive in practice by the bureaucracy and
parliamentary input into their formulation and passage is minimal, with very many Bills passing after
barely five minutes of debate. Tharoor suggests looking at the French or the American/Latin American
Model with a separate, Presidential form of executive and legislative, with the power balance in favor
of the former, and with each which does not indedependent ofn each other for its survival. A gradual
discourse around such a possibility needs to be fueled.
A concurrent theme in this essay has been on the need for genuine engagement of the state with the
public. After all a state is constructed for the welfare of its constituents and for human constituents
who are always evolving their aspirations, keeping pace with the welfare needs of the people requires
genuine and structured facilitation of public engagement. It could in fact be counterproductive to over
emphasize on e-governance as an interface for public engagement. The strongest institution for the
interface between the state and the society needs to be the party, as was the case during the Nehruvian
congress system. The party is the pedestal institution on which each government rises up to the
podium of power. Political parties could hence effectively communicate peoples aspirations to the
government as well as to mobilize public investment (non-capitol, civil stakeholder investment) in the
states march forward. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) provided a welcome disruption to the political
landscape by bringing in procedurally honest candidates, crowd funded white money campaigns,
public assemblies on policy issues, etc. It would also be fair to acknowledge that the BJP, under the
leadership of now Prime Minister Modi, had reorganized the party and its style of campaigning. From
media reports, it is also apparent that he has plans to build the party bottom-up as a sustainable
institution. While the intentions are applaudable, the real results will be shone only when this process
is done democratically and with democratic principles of public engagement in mind.
Our institutions, instead of reforming the state and the society, seem to be themselves underOne can
perceive a traditional hangover of traditions.in our institutions as much as there is one in the public.
The institutional hangover is more dangerous as it reinforces publics traditional hangover, where
mostly its mandate should be otherwise, i.e. reformist. The structure and function of our Bureaucracy
and our Armed Forcesinstitutions remains stupendously similar to what it was when the colonialists
left (Kothari and Kaviraj). Our bureaucrats still bully thebehave like hegemons in front of the common
public; our Armed forces still dont have a joint command due to inter-services rivalry; our
government itself is culpable of continuing with the still practice ofpresents a separate railway budget;
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the provides higher subsidy of for inefficient diesel over petrol and maintainsing financial black holes
such as Air India. The matter of traditions is worth more debate than just on an institutional practice
level. Traditions are the national fabric that adorns the state machinery of which and values are the
diverse human threads that interweave themselves to create such a fabric. Of late, the disenchantment
of public from the political process due to the lack of fulfillment of its demands has left the state solely
responsible for the current state of decay. Bringing about a culture of public engagement requires
reinvigoration of the nationalist spirit, not in an ultra-revivalist right-wing understanding, but in the
understanding of nation as the larger ideal that we all mutually work towards. Despite of the sorry state
of American politics, theres no one who can takeit needs to be given due credit for away the fact that
Americans are very motivated about the concept of their nation and the ideals it espouses. The
American flag is heavily used a symbol of national branding at all public spaces. The American
President engages with the American public through regular interviews, public gatherings, state of the
union addresses, White House Correspondents dinner etc. Indian Lleadership needs to break out of the
traditional hangover and mold and interact with the public to and motivate them public. Motivation is
an often left out but extremely essential key to national progress. John F Kennedy mobilized the entire
nation through one speech, not into downing a centuries old mosque or to revive centuries old Vedic
practices, but to study science and technology so that the nation could achieve its ambitious goal of
reaching the moon in ten years. Such is the power of human traditions and values.
Even though the Modi government has risen to power amongst great popular support and trust, it is
hardly capitalizing on their support base for revival of nationalism and nationalist values. There have
been extremely important events where the Prime Minister, who rose to power due to his connect with
the public via social media, mass rallies and interviews (atleast in the later half), could have spoken to
direct the nation, assuage peoples anguish and channelize their emotions for positive value building
but didnt. First, in Pune a Muslim techie was killed by a rightwing mob for wearing a skullcap. Then
came the proclamations from State minister Sudin Dhavalikar that girls should be banned from
wearing short skirts and going to pubs. In the last couple of days, the noise has only worsened.
Telanganas choice of Sania Mirza as brand ambassador was mired in controversy after a BJP MLA
called her Pakistans daughter-in-law. Dinanath Batra, the man who got Penguin to pulp Wendy
Donigers book on Hinduism, has managed to get his own books on the prescribed reading list in
Gujarats schools. He advises against birthday candles, calls black people negroes and compares
them to burnt chapaties, and claims television existed in the time of the Mahabharat. Modi has
maintained a disquieting silence through all this. It would be loss of the state of yet another opportunity
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to convert a clear mandate (by the people) into institutionalized welfare of the society through national
building, value orientation and public engagement.
Conclusion

A concurrent theme in this essay has been on the need for genuine engagement of the state with the
public. After all a state is constructed for the welfare needs of human constituents with always
evolving aspirations. Keeping pace with the welfare needs of the people requires genuine and
structured facilitation of public engagement. It could in fact be counterproductive to over emphasize on
e-governance as an interface for public engagement. The strongest institution for the interface between
the state and the society needs to be the party, as was the case during the Nehruvian congress system.
The party is the pedestal institution on which each government rises up to the podium of power.
Political parties could hence effectively communicate peoples aspirations to the government as well as
to mobilize public investment (non-capitol, civil stakeholder investment) in the states march forward.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) provided a welcome disruption to the political landscape by bringing in
procedurally honest candidates, crowd funded white money campaigns, public assemblies on policy
issues, etc. It would also be fair to acknowledge that the BJP, under the leadership of now Prime
Minister Modi, has initiated plans to rebuild the party, bottom-up, as a sustainable institution.
However this much is clear, the society is in a state of flux and is aspiring to homogenize itself into a
mass society. The change in aspirations needs to be reflected in the workings of the Institutions that
deliver on behalf of the state. We have been moving for far too long between the policies of class
patronage and populism and need to move to a more realpolitik based approach to strategic
development that stays put for a longer period of time. To create such a strategy, we need a common
vision that truly enunciates the aspirations of our society for the state to deliver upon. Hence a critical
task to be done is for the public to engage within themselves in a democratic framework and come up
with a cogent and inclusive developmental vision. However, the onus for facilitating such a discourse
also lies upon the institutions of the state.

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Decline of the Institutions and Rise of the Mass Society

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