The Trajectory of Indian State: A Theoretical Understanding

Introduction

The notion of state occupies an important position in contemporary academic discourse. The concept of state has shown remarkable resurgence during the last couple of decades despite the neo-liberal doctrine, which tries to demean the influence of state from the forces of globalisation. Although, the forces of globalisation try to undermine the ability of the state to control socio-economic activities within its boundary, it is unable to strike down the role of the state. Instead, it has reshaped and demanded new forms of interaction between states, society and its citizens. Academic scholarship on the nature of state particularly in terms of developing countries over the period observes that states across the region have been struggling to protect its most vulnerable and marginalised population from the economic and other challenges. States continue to face challenges in creating favourable conditions for inclusive citizenship within a region characterised by high levels of poverty, ethnic and social diversity. The task of the state is getting more challenging in the 21st century as it is continuing to confront the new economic, political, social and environmental problems. In this perspective, it is unlikely to mark the untimely demise of the role of the state in contemporary time; rather it has contributed more arena to discuss the changing nature and character of the state in the post- globalised world. The experiences of the state for the citizens cannot be homogenous. They are hugely diverse in terms of the different groups of the society, as there is a deep division which exists within the Indian society not only between rich and poor but also along the line of caste, gender, religion, language and class. Therefore, the experiences of the state in this regard are always heterogeneous. In this context, it is to be mentioned that the state occupies a significant place in the study of the politics of India also. Drawing on the rich trajectory of the dimensions of state, a conceptual picture thus emerges that it is imagined, not structurally predetermined, but has material impacts on the people and their everyday lives (Williams et al., 2011).

The state is the reflection of the authoritative institutions and is responsible for formulating the policies and enforcing the decisions throughout the country. Theda Skocpol has given the observation that the state can initiate action, agencies, policies and programmes for the society; autonomy of the state is structural rather than historically contingent (Migdal, 2001). The state is also associated with the authoritative and dominant institutional concentration of power. The concept and the idea of the state have shown remarkable resilience over the last couple of decades because of the process of globalisation and liberalisation. The forces of globalisation and liberalisation have not only inevitably reshaped the nature of the political economy but also demanded new forms of interaction between states and their citizens. While doing so, it also necessitated arguments and debates about the changing nature of the state in carrying out its welfare and development activities within the larger discourse of the neo-liberal economy. Neo-liberal doctrine has given further challenges towards the state’s performance in terms of its socio-economic activities within its boundaries. Thus, it becomes inevitable to have a discussion on the experiences of the citizens about the state and its role in initiating and implementing policies in meeting the goals of a welfare state.

The notion of the Indian state as ‘welfare state’ has also been debated and discredited in the wake of the process of globalisation, and it has also encouraged reinterpretation about the idea of a welfare state. The struggle between the state and market and the study of the role of the state is primarily an important one. The forces of globalisation have created some new opportunities and challenges or the obstacles for the Indian state in terms of realising the process of democracy and in dealing with the economic transition in contemporary time. In the wake of globalisation, the Indian state has gradually been made an agency to act in the interest as well as at the behest of monopoly capital. It has been facing a dilemma that most of the post-colonial states are also facing. The hegemonic (capitalist) trend for global integration, welcomes the reducing power of the territorial nation-state system. Champions of neo-liberal states have welcomed the diminishing role of the state as the protector of interest of the marginalised. On the other hand, they have encouraged the changing role of the state as the saviour and promoter of the policies favouring the interest of the few big capitalists against the working class, peasantry and other deprived sections of the society. However, scholars such as Partha Chatterjee and Kalyan Sanyal provide a different interpretation and arguments concerning the changing character of Indian state within the larger context of understanding neo-liberal economy. They argue that although the Indian state has been providing protection and scope for the capitalist interests to grow, it also parallelly comes forward with the agency of social justice through its welfarist programmes. This joining of capitalism and welfare thus acts as the necessary safety valve for the advancement of capitalism in the post-liberal Indian state. This has made the logical extension of a neo-liberal state (Sanyal, 2007).

The Process of Nation-building and Indian State Dilemma

In understanding the nation, nationalism and the nation-state system in the context of a post-colonial society such as India, it can be argued that it widely differs from the West. The trajectory of the Indian state can also be seen through its initial mechanism of nation-state building process during its post-colonial phase. India like other post-colonial states, to fashion a nation-state, initiated a nation-building process soon after its Independence. In the initial period of this process, India, however, rejected any ethnic basis for its nationhood; despite being a plural land of diverse ethnic groups, instead, it relied on a unified political system based on political values like equal citizenship right, democracy, secularism, etc. But later on, this process of undermining the voices and interests of diverse ethnic groups led to their demand for the different forms of political rights. This created a serious crisis for the survival of India as a nation-state. The formation of nation, nationalism and the nation-state system in the West can be viewed as the product of bourgeoisie economic system, and it was closely associated with the process of modernisation and industrialisation (Dutta, 2005). But in the case of India, the basic foundation of nationalism and the building of the nation-state system was laid down by the basic premises of colonial exploitation. The whole trajectory of the ‘nationalist project’ in India has been marked by contradictions and challenges. The interpretation of nationalism in the context of a country like India was marked by the resistance and people’s voice and also mobilisation against colonial administration and exploitation. The nationalist discourse in India represents a political contest, a struggle for power with the discourse of colonialism. However, while trying to replace the structure of colonial power with a new order, that of national power, the nationalist discourse, as a set of ideological doctrine, has failed to liberate itself from the domination of colonial knowledge. The post-colonial states like India are characterised by the presence of multi-ethnic groups. Moreover, when India was colonised, the colonial regime created some artificial politico-administrative units and boundaries that were fixed in complete disregard to the actual distribution of people. With the emergence of India as an independent state, it inherited the artificial politico-administrative entity fixed by the colonial rulers. This process of nation-state formation is not an exception to India alone; it also exhibits the same process to the other decolonised nations such as Africa and other Asian nations. The societies of Asia and Africa are characterised by the presence of diverse ethnic groups and the extent of this heterogeneity is significant. When these states completed their decolonisation process, societies too came under the process of creating and reconstructing artificial political and administrative setup, which resulted in the complete mismatch between the political and cultural boundaries in the state. It was frequently noticed that the same cultural group was distributed between two or more states. Therefore, the two primary factors such as the heterogeneous character of the society and artificial fixation of boundaries have created the space for the conflict between nationalism and ethnicity. As a result, the nation-building process all over the world particularly in the context of the multi-ethnic societies and response to the ethnic groups towards such endeavours has invited serious academic scrutiny. With the retreat of colonial power, the nationalist leaders on the other hand, in their zeal to emulate the nation-state model of the West, tried to forge a homogeneous national identity in the name of nation-building process so that the state corresponds to a nation. As a result, the post-colonial world order witnessed and relied on the concept of supremacy of the state, anchored on a superimposed nationalism, legitimised by secular or religious ideologies and enforced by an extremely powerful bureaucracy (Narang, 1995). India, like other post-colonial states, to create a nation-state initiated a nation-building process soon after its Independence. At the initial period of its post-colonial nation-building process, India relied on a unified political system based on political values like equal citizenship right, democracy, secularism, etc. The realisation of the nation-state model in plural societies of post-colonial states like India involves the creation of a homogenous civil and national community through the state-sponsored nation-building process. Against this homogenisation process of the Indian state through political and cultural means, minority groups and the other ethnic groups of India are being deprived of political rights. Similarly, ethnic groups of India are, therefore, pressing for different forms of political rights and thereby creating a serious crisis for the survival of India as a nation-state. Against such background, any claim of ethnic, minorities or other such subaltern groups is considered as disruption to nation-building process. Such claims are a threat to national security and territorial integrity and, hence, dismissed as anti-national. The Indian state has adopted different measures in mitigating the contradictions and confrontations by opening up the domain of the state for accommodating, mediating and negotiating discontents in the civil society, although on a limited scale. However, these measures have proved to be neither successful nor satisfactory, in dealing with the multiple ethnic assertions and demands made by the different ethnic groups. This can be explained in the context of the Indian state responses towards the diverse ethnic claims made in the North-east of India. North-east India is culturally very diverse and has witnessed numerous ethnic conflicts among the different existing ethnic groups and the other sections of the society. Several states adopted numerous measures to resolve ethnic conflicts by providing Sixth Schedule status, signing up of accords with different ethnic groups, devolution of power within the structure of ‘asymmetric federalism’ of Indian Constitution, the formation of new states and other autonomous regions. However, these accommodating measures of Indian state have significantly failed to contain the ethnic violence in much of North-east India.

Theoretical Debates on Understanding of the Nature of the Indian State

Although there are no serious agreements on what constitutes the nature of post-colonial state, broadly speaking, there are two dominant approaches regarding the Indian state, that is, Liberal and Marxist approach. However, both these approaches are taken to be inadequate by the new state oriental literature. Because both Liberal and Marxist theories focus on social determinants of the political process, level of economic development and detract attention from the state, a significant agent in shaping and moulding political social process (Parekh, 1993). Neo-liberal modernists such as Rajni Kothari, Atul Kohli, Frankel, Rudolph focus on the different institutions and processes as the key elements to understand the state and political power in India. Marxist theorists, on the other hand, regard the political economy as the decisive factor and the principle of class analysis as determining element in unpacking the state. The neo-Marxists such as Sudipta Kaviraj, Achin Vanaik, Pranab Bardhan and Partha Chatterjee interpret the nature of the state from the perspective of orthodox Marxism, Gramscian and cultural terms. They argued that in the state there are many different groups that try to surpass one another and sometimes these try to work in a coalitional arrangement so that they can preserve their dominance. According to this view, it means that nature and autonomy thesis of the Indian state can be described in terms of changing balances in the ruling class coalition.

The early descriptions of the state concentrated on the functioning of political institutions and democratic processes. In India, the trend of analysing the state in terms of state–society relation began to emerge around the 1970s, within the academic community. It started when the legal and institutional focus began to give way to a societal explanation under the impact of primarily two rival theoretical frameworks of analysis, that is, structural functionalism and Marxism. Structural functionalism primarily tries to understand the argument that despite social conflicts and tensions, Indian state had the resilience to sustain itself. because of the consensus that has been built underlying the Indian social life. The support to sustain the state. Following a structural functional framework, Rajni Kothari described the political system as working around a ‘dynamic core’ of institutions characterised by the dominance of the Congress system (Chatterjee, 2010). Similarly, it can also be mentioned about views of W.H. Morris-Jones who also stressed the capability of political institutions, especially one-party dominance, and more generally, representative institutions in bringing about social and economic changes (Jones-Morris, 1987). Rajni Kothari has attributed to the existence of pluralist tolerance and culture of consensus for the success of the Indian democratic process. Kothari believed that democratic development of Indian state was possible under the rule of Congress system. Kothari’s account of the consensual character of ‘the Congress system’ was criticised because of the democratic crisis with the culmination of the Emergency of 1975–1977 and the use of repressive state apparatus, which broke down the Kothari’s consensus model.

The observation of Gunnar Myrdal, in terms of the role of the state, can be referred to as ‘soft state’ that cannot act against the vested interest (Myrdal, 1968). The term ‘soft state’ can be related to the newly emergent nations, but an especially classic example is India, which lacks the institutional capacity to enforce the public policies to eradicate poverty and to promote economic development. The observation of Lloyd Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph also hold the same view. They say that the capacity of the Indian state to deal with the crisis has declined. Rudolph analyses the Indian political economy as possessing the dual characteristics of a ‘weak–strong state’ with two models to describe the autonomy of Indian state; command polity and demand polity (Rudolph & Rudolph, 1987). In ‘demand polity’, societal demands expressed as electoral pressure dominate over the state. Here the citizens are sovereign where they try to represent their demands through representation by interests, classes, community and movements. In the ‘command polity’, autonomous states are sovereign where the state hegemony dominates over the society (ibid.). Here the argument rests on the state’s role as the ‘third actor’, along with capital and labour, and by far the most powerful one, concerning both ‘organised private capital’ and ‘organised labour’ (Hassan, 2000). Rudolph maintained that Indian democratic state is simultaneously weak and strong. It is strong because it controls the commanding heights of the economy but at the same time, it is weak as it failed to govern or provide equitable treatment to the citizens’ demands. Therefore, Rudolphs agreed that the autonomy of Indian state has declined since Independence. The inability of the state to achieve its declared agenda can also be attributed to the views of Atul Kohli.

The growing incapacity of the Indian state to maintain the democratic process culminated into the ‘crisis of governability’ (Hassan, 2000). It is the inability of the Indian state to achieve its declared agenda in the 1980s and the rising of various demands from the different groups of the society that have not been responded by the state, leading to an all-round crisis of governability. To Kohli (2000), among the many reasons of its failure, one underlying cause can be weakness of political institutions of the state such as the decline and the erosion of political parties. Francis Frankel, who is a social scientist, also gave her views on Indian state and its democratic development. She raised an important argument in terms of the nature of the state. She viewed that the Indian state apparatus was controlled by the dominant interests of the powerful and elite propertied class (Frankel, 2006). In their discussion, Frankel and Rao observe that the history of politics in Independent India was one of the rising powers of formerly low-status groups such as the lower castes and the poorer classes in the political institutions and the attempt by upper-caste and middle-class groups to protect their privileges in public institutions (ibid.). Therefore, Frankel believes that policies of the government are being prepared by the political compromises among the influences of political elites, leaders with powerful interest groups and factions. Thus, the Indian state is struggling with the accommodative politics, the one which jeopardises the state’s agenda of radical social change in contemporary times. The state, as Frankel emphasised, is presently facing the difficulties in confronting an accommodationist strategy of class conciliation in politics and a commitment to transformative goals in society within a democratic framework (ibid.).

The position that was taken up by the structural functionalist was contested by the Marxists. It was argued that the Indian state was a class institution representing class oppression, and its claims were challenged by the peasants and the workers who constituted the majority of the oppressed class. For Marxists, the nature of the state can be understood in terms of both the long-term structural compulsions of Indian politics which are determined by capitalism and the inclusion of the economy in the international capitalist system and its division of labour and also the coalition arrangements and the changing balance in the class coalitions dominating the state (Kaviraj, 1996). Marxists also view the complexity of class formation, class conflict and class action as the major elements for understanding the limitation of the state and capitalist transformation. Prabhat Patnaik, on the other hand, has given three elements for ruling class coalition: monopoly bourgeoisie, land-owning elite and bureaucratic managerial elite (Patnaik, 1972). The state structure is regulated and dominated by these three classes accordingly. But the imposition of Emergency in 1975 produced a new lease of controversy regarding the repressive power in sustaining the state. After the imposition of Emergency, the discussion over the nature of the autonomy of the state has shifted to the relative autonomy of the state.

The Marxist position was initially oriented towards the understanding of Indian state from the class perspective. But the Gramscian intervention in the 1970s brought into focus several studies. Achin Vanaik, K.N. Raj, Pranab Bardhan, Asok Sen, Sudipta Kaviraj, and others viewed the state as the non-hegemonic and the role of the coalitional class is also important in terms of understanding the nature of the state. These coalitions of classes consist of the bourgeoisie, the rich and the middle peasantry, the landlords, the petty bourgeoisie and the negation of these classes being rather fluid and complex (Gupta, 2013). According to a noted social scientist, Pranab Bardhan, state elite consists of three classes, industrial capitalist class, proprietary class and professional class (Bardhan, 1984). During the first decade after Independence, the state elite in India enjoyed an independent authority and enormous prestige and were the main actors who redirected and restructured the nation’s economy. But over the time, however, with the strengthening of the main proprietary classes, the industrial and agrarian bourgeoisie, the autonomous behaviour of the state became restricted more to its ‘regulatory’ rather than its ‘developmental’ functions (ibid.). It is so because these class alliances have engaged in earning more profit for their sectional interest by reducing the state’s role from developmental activities to the mere management of policies which favour the dominant proprietary classes. After Pranab Bardhan, Sudipta Kaviraj has also mentioned about the dominant class model, in his essay ‘A Critique of the Passive Revolution’ following Antonio Gramsci’s idea of Passive Revolution (Kaviraj, 1989). Kaviraj has given his observation regarding the process of class domination (industrial–capitalists, rural elites and bureaucratic–managerial) in post-colonial India. Powers have been shared by the dominant classes, as no particular class could exercise hegemony on its own. Thus, sharing of power became an endless struggle among the different dominant groups, with one class gaining ascendency over another. Kaviraj provided a synoptic political history of the relative dominance and decline of the industrial capitalists, the ruling elites and the bureaucratic–managerial elite within the framework of the passive revolution (Hassan, 2000). Therefore, it can be said from the observation of Kaviraj that nature and autonomy thesis of the Indian state can be described in terms of changing balances in the ruling class coalition.

Since the mid-1980s, under the influence of post-colonialism, post-modernism and the subaltern and cultural studies, together with the decline of Marxism and the onset of globalisation and liberalisation, a major understanding of the social character of the Indian state has developed (Gupta, 2013). The principal trends in case of the understanding trajectory of Indian state include the conceptualisation of caste issue, following the rise of dalit politics, politics of social justice, civil society and the rise of new social movements to the corporatisation of the Indian state in the wake of liberalisation. There are certain primary considerations that involve an understanding of the social profile of Indian state which eventually impacted the trajectory of the state. First, the nature of India’s participatory democracy has influenced the growth and awareness of different micro identity groups, and it also helped them in mobilising their demands and further encouraged different movements for their identity assertions. This is reflected in the case of articulation of different demands and mobilisation of the marginalised sections such as dalits, adivasis, ethnic groups, which were either suppressed or recognised by the state. Second, these rising voices of the marginalised sections and their assertions and mobilisations have contributed to the growth of different forces, which became the cause for the growth of the non-Congress coalition at the centre and the states, which eventually led to the decline of Congress party (Kothari, 1970). Third, corporatisation of Indian state has declined the role of the state and opened up some of the major sectors to market in the name of reforms, development or modernisation, which again led to the emergence of vast sections of marginalised and deprived sections that form the informal sector. Fourth, state-market negotiation also created a different sort of conflict. Protection of corporate capitalism by the state in terms of promoting development has led to the intensification of violence in many tribal-dominated areas. It is manifested in the form of ‘Maoist’ violence in certain parts of the state and the rise of civil society as the critique of state repression can be seen as one of the repercussions of the state-led development. Again, the implementation of state’s poverty alleviation programme such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and its implementation is done with that of the NGOs, bureaucrats and political parties, giving a new way to look into the role of the state in the 21st century (Gupta, 2013). It can be said that the adoption of developmental programmes reinforces the state’s role as a developmental one and legitimises it for adopting development programmes for a pre-capitalist sector alongside the accumulation-based modern sector in the globalised world.

Theoretical debates on the understanding of Indian state again got a new twist with the onset of globalisation. The nature and the role of the post-colonial Indian state have been undergoing dramatic changes since the 1990s. Gradual withdrawal of the state from its commitments of welfare policies, the rise of identity politics, the assertion of dalits and mobilisation of Other Backward Classes (OBCs), the emergence of majoritarian Hindu nationalist tendencies gave a new course to the trajectory of the Indian state. The basic philosophy underlying the economic reforms was that the state is no longer an active agent for the development, but actively playing as a facilitator for corporate business to flourish. This transition of state-orientated development to market-oriented one evoked different responses from different groups of the state. Neo-liberal economic policies adopted by the state under the influence and dictates of financial institutions such as International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organisation (WTO) have created social discontent in post-colonial societies. The failure of the state to allocate resources equally led to the rise of civil society discontentment against it. Again, the post-reform phase has also started a development paradigm in the state which eventually resulted in the politics of exclusion. In the words of Partha Chatterjee, this politics of exclusion is especially for those who remain beyond the reach of governability such as tribals, low-caste groups, who do not participate in agriculture. This has led to the terrain of alternative politics of protest and contestation between the excluded and the agents of governmentability (Chatterjee, 2008). With the rise of multiple movements for the identity of dalits, tribals, adivasis and different ethnic groups, the Indian society has come up with a new politics of recognition. These identity issues have put forward the challenge towards the state-centric, homogenous notion of citizenship. Such assertions and movements of the subalterns are challenging the authority of the state and demanding more ‘inclusiveness’ in terms of political, social and economic spheres.

Conclusion

The trajectory of the Indian state has been passing through a stage from developmentalism to neo-liberalism. The expansion of market reforms and corporatisation has led to the large-scale displacement of marginalised sections in the society. Post-globalisation Indian state is marked by a huge set of informalisation, wide-scale informal economy and informal workers who remain mostly invisible. Therefore, unemployment and underemployment are two distinct features of post-colonial capitalism. This particular phenomenon has created a new set of development politics in the context of the post-colonial Indian state. The state now directly targets the excluded people through the launching of different policies and programmes. Electoral compulsions and the structure of democracy have forced the Indian post-colonial state to draw different developmental programmes and welfare interventions to ameliorate the conditions of the victims of capitalist inequality. However, these enhancement programmes have reached only a small section of targeted groups. The state is now engaging itself in managing the discourses of the development by allowing the accumulation of capital and simultaneously taking part in rehabilitating the excluded sections of the society. Therefore, it can be said that the management of excluded and their poverty have become an integral part of the management of the growth. It can be inferred that the state is consolidating its image among the masses as a guardian of the individual as well the collective interest, and ordinary citizens continue to fix their responsibilities on the state. It re-imposes citizens’ faith in the role of the state in terms of delivering the basic conditions of well-being.