A journey on track

A history of contemporary India, the book brings together a vast amount of information related to social and economic development since Independence. It could, however, have analysed contrary views like the contemporary criticism of Nehruvian socialism, says ARJUN K. SENGUPTA.

PROFESSORS Bipan Chandra, Mridula Mukherjee and Aditya Mukherjee have jointly produced a very useful and compact history of contemporary India, called India after Independence (1947-2000). They deserve high compliments for not only bringing together a vast amount of information on almost all areas of political and economic development in the country, but for also giving the narration a perspective of social progress evolving out of the conflicts and interactions between social groups, classes and interests. They convey an optimism about India's journey after independence, set off by "the founders of the Indian republic" towards a "democratic and civil libertarian society among an illiterate people" and "economic development within a democratic political structure". That journey, despite all the ups and downs and the road-blocks created by forces of history, has stayed on track. Indian democracy has remained vibrant throughout the period and Indian development has progressed steadily, even if not very rapidly, within the framework of democracy, as if India is destined to realise greatness.

The best period in India's recent history would appear to be the initial years - the years of hope and achievement, 1951-64; and that was almost entirely due to Nehru, to whom the authors are clearly beholden. They quote one of his biographers: "If Nehru had been a different kind of man, India would have become a different kind of country", and throughout the first few chapters, India's developments bear testimony to the impact of Nehru, the man and the dreamer, who wanted to consolidate Indian independence, national unity and democracy, through secularism, opposing communalism and conservatism, through planned development and through a non-aligned foreign policy. India was fortunate to have several other leaders of high capability and integrity at that time, but it was Nehru, his personality and vision that dominated and shaped the Indian development.

The discussions of these developments are quite comprehensive and very well written. India was grappling with problems of nation- building, integrating ethnic and religious groups from different regions and tribes, with linguistic reorganisation of the States, as well as with problems of social change and economic development. On all these, Nehru's vision left its indelible imprint. His ideas on economic development, industrialisation with heavy industry and development of science and technology, including space and atomic energy, set the basis of our planning. Agricultural development programmes, supported by large budget allocation was to be promoted by institutional reforms, community development programmes and land reforms, as well as irrigation programmes and new technology setting the base for the green revolution, which gathered momentum in the late 1960s. The founding fathers were also deeply aware of the need for social change, with the Hindu Code Bill and the Anti-untouchability Law of 1955 and the appointment of the Commissioner of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Nehru in particular was emphasising the need for gender equity and development as well as the essentiality of education, at the primary and the secondary level and also at the level of university and high technology.

It is not that the authors are not critical of Nehru at all. But their criticisms are those of admirers - in terms of Nehru's excessive idealism, bordering on non-realism and excessive trust, as in the case of the policy on China. The harshest criticism was his "non-adherence to the Gandhian strategy" of "the mobilisation of the people", because he believed in spontaneity, "in the poor mobilising on their own". "He harboured the 19th-century liberal notion that his speeches or those of other right type of leaders would by themselves arouse and activise the masses". They ignore almost totally the neo-liberal and conservative criticisms of Nehru - that Nehruvian socialism held back our economic development, that his ideas of modernism and secularism alienated the vast masses of our people or that his non-aligned foreign policy tilted towards the Soviet Union, and compromised our security by antagonising the West. These criticisms may be shown to be flimsy, baseless or analytically untenable. But in the year 2000, with the world now totally changed from those early years after independence, these criticisms cannot just be ignored.

This otherwise very well-written book unfortunately suffers from this main drawback. It does not, in most cases, consider the contrary views or try to establish a point of view without analysing and rejecting the alternatives. A glaring example is the chapter on "the J.P. movement and the Emergency". The way the story has been presented, and the authors have done a very skillful job of marshalling the facts, of extra-constitutional and undemocratic methods of intimidating and coercing elected legislators and governments to resign and give up, - culminating in the launching of the gherao of Prime Minister's house by hundreds of thousands o volunteers to force her to resign - it would seem very natural that Indira Gandhi would impose emergency. According to the authors, the emergency was not unpopular for about a year, with the 20-point programme having some results and that it was the excesses of Sanjay Gandhi and the bureaucrats that pushed the process out of control, which made Indira Gandhi suddenly withdraw the emergency and call for the elections.

The authors are not that sympathetic to Mrs. Gandhi, although they think she had her strengths, possessing great political skills and courage - "decisive and when necessary, ruthless" - and empathy and affection for the poor. But she lacked "Nehru's ideological moorings" or any "long-term perspective for her politics" or any "respect for institutions". These views may be very authentic but the readers are left with no evidence of their basis. After her return to power for the second time, the authors think, "she no longer had a firm grasp over politics and administration" and that "her earlier energy, decisiveness and determination were replaced by an approach of hesitation and caution". How the authors came to these conclusions, the readers do not know.

The chapter on the Rajiv years and the discussions on the governments of V. P. Singh, Chandrashekhar, Narasimha Rao and Vajpayee are packed with information and broad sweeps of opinion, but they lack the coherence of the earlier chapters. However, some of the other chapters are extremely valuable, bringing within a short span, a whole set of complex issues. The best examples are the three chapters on land reforms and the chapters on politics in the States, especially the one on the Punjab crisis. Indian experiments with land reforms are stories of class conflicts caught in the web of antagonistic interactions of sub- class interest groups and of legal provisions submerged by economic interests. These chapters bring out those stories very effectively.

There are three longish chapters on the Indian economy for the periods covering 1947-65, 1965-91 and economic reforms since 1991 and towards the end there is a discussion on the records of reduction of poverty and improvement of the quality of life. Again, there is a whole lot of information in these chapters, but, unfortunately, they give the impression that the authors have taken it upon themselves to show how well India has done in all those areas. They have done better than many government spokesmen, but they have not done justice to their academic standing. There is a huge amount of literature on the negative sides of our economic performance, both from the right and from the left, and attempts should have been made at least to present those arguments and refute them if they so felt.

Robert Solow, the Nobel Laureate in economics and the father of the modern theory of economic growth, once identified two basic characteristics of an academic exercise: one, avoidance of unfounded generalisation, and two, non-indulgence in excessive certainty about any opinion. I am not sure if this book will pass that test. Nevertheless, it is a valuable book because of all the information it provides and because it will surely provoke all readers to think and to raise questions.

India after Independence

(1947-2000), Bipan Chandra, Mridula Mukherjee and Aditya Mukherjee, Penguin.

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