Abstract
Thanks to vigorous ‘globalization’ (or perhaps re-globalization) and massive global innovations in communications, digitization and multimedia technology as well as country’s vastness of both population and geographical area, India as a sovereign nation appears outwardly to be managing well to have carved out its distinct niche in the current international stage.
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Notes
- 1.
As for just one simple illustrative instance: after a Kerala young woman of 23 years chopped off about 90% of the genitals of a ‘godman’, who had allegedly been subjecting her to sexual assault for about eight years, the Chief Minister of the state publicly hailed this woman’s act as ‘brave’ and ‘courageous’ and promised all possible support from the government (The Statesman (Kolkata), 22 May 2017, p. 3). [The severely injured god-man is immediately booked by police on rape charges, but no charge has seemingly been levelled for any criminal offence in form of grave homicidal violence to the alleged ‘rapist’.] Does the notion of justice and its delivery as revealed by the Chief Minister’s public statement tally with the one that is enshrined in the country’s democratic secular Constitution? If this is the level of understanding about justice, democracy, human rights and judiciary in the mind of an executive head of a state, how much one could expect about the standard and rigour with which general population would comply with Constitutional directives, principles, laws and order?
- 2.
A six hundred feet high statue of the past national Congress leader, Vallabhbhai Patel—the largest in size in the world and twice the height of America’s the Statue of Liberty—is being erected with a public expenditure of around Rs. 3000 crores in Gujarat by its state government; the Maharashtra government is constructing a giant statue of seventeenth-century warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji on the Arabian sea at the proposed cost of Rs. 3600 crores. There has been (reportedly) a protest by a small fishing community on the ground of possible damage to the habitat of sea fish, ecology and environment at large, but hardly on the ground that this project is not a rational and reasonable public action in face of many unfulfilled pressing basic needs of a vast mass of the state’s population. More recently, the BJP-led government in Uttar Pradesh has proposed a plan of installing a grand statue (100-metre) of Lord Ram in a warrior pose on the River Sarayu in Ayodhya, with an estimated cost of about Rs. 195.89 crores, while the state is virtually reeling in the wake of a large number new-born babies dying (apparently because of severe lack of basic amenities in hospitals and related factors) (The Hindustan Times, 10 October 2017).
- 3.
A Rajasthan High Court judge has passed a verdict on 31 May 2017, directing all state governments to get cows declared as ‘national animal’ and to ensure that its slaughterers are punished with imprisonment for life, while adding that ‘[i]t [action against those who kill cows) is the voice of my soul, everybody’s soul…[t]hat law has stemmed from “dharma” (religion) not vice-versa’ (The Statesman, 1 June 2017, p. 1). When asked by a reporter about the rationale behind declaring cow slaughter as a heinous crime, the judge said that ‘Cow is like mother. She saves people from different diseases’. Also, on the same day the Kerala High Court, faced with a PIL (public interest litigation) petition seeking stay on central government’s notification banning sale and purchase of cattle for slaughter, declined to interfere into the matter on the ground that this notification does not violate the Constitution (ibid.).
- 4.
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis was originally published in German in 1915. Several edited and translated versions in English have subsequently been made by several publishing houses.
- 5.
For example, J.P. Lewis (1962), Quiet Crisis in India: Economic Development and American Policy (Bombay: Asia Publishing House); A.H. Hanson (1963), ‘The Crisis of Indian Planning’, The Political Quarterly, 34(4); H.K. Manmohan Singh (1969), ‘Reflections on the Crisis of Economic Development in India’, The Australian Quarterly, 41(4); and W. Malenbaum (1957), ‘The Economic Crisis in India’, Economic and Political Weekly, 9.
- 6.
See Drèze and Sen (2013) for lucid discussion of the biases inherent in India’s mainstream media.
- 7.
Interestingly, the same mainstream media generally appears too prompt and even perhaps extravagant in hyping and publicising, with much pomp and fanfare, even a casual remark of Prime Minister and such other high-profiled political leaders in some public space/capacity, or a launch of some new gimmick-laden initiative such as ‘Goribi Hotao’ or ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’, or for that matter, India’s massive humanity taking a ‘holy dip’ in the Ganges on some auspicious religious occasions, let alone media’s perennial profligacy over sports, cinema.
- 8.
For a useful discussion on a slow progress in human and social development indicators in India, see Drèze and Sen (2013: Chapters 2 and 3).
- 9.
Corruption is often hypothesized in the mainstream economics literature to have two somewhat opposite effects on economic performance of firms: ‘grease the wheels’ and ‘sands the wheels’. In the former case, bribe-taking may well benefit individual firms and businesses—especially when there are imperfections in the market—as the bureaucratic processes get expedited for them because of the bribe, while such rent-seeking behaviour could also work negatively and dampen entrepreneurial efficiency in case of many industries—particularly of smaller-scale and under greater competitive conditions (see Mitra and Sharma 2016).
- 10.
In a very recent illuminating essay, Sumanta Banerjee posits that Indian citizens seem to have been so deeply conditioned by blatantly corrupt and opportunistic political culture that their current ‘mentality’—one of keeping patience/silence in face of increasing flare-up of communal and caste riots and lynching—increasingly resembles what was called ‘the mass psychology of fascism’—the term coined by German scholar Wilhelm Reich in his book published in 1933 to explain ‘the popularity of fascist leaders and institutions among the common people’ in the peak period of fascism in Germany (Banerjee 2017: 15).
- 11.
B. R. Ambedkar had also advanced a somewhat similar line of argumentation and showed how Hindu mythological discourses and the Brahminical scriptural texts have had many inner ideational and logical ambiguities and riddles, which contributed to the shaping of a dilemma-ridden mind and perceptions among common people and thus helped instil what is otherwise illogical or incoherent or immoral. All this, as he had argued, has been instrumental to the perpetuation of the Brahminical domination over masses of lower social stratum; see, e.g., Ambedkar (2008). It may also be of interest to note here that in a very recent revelation of a young woman’s sixteen-year-old official complaint, which had triggered CBI probe into rape charges against Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, a self-styled god-man, who got eventually convicted and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, when the latter was asked by the former how could he as a self-proclaimed God justify his having sexual relations with his woman followers other than his wife, he allegedly replied back: ‘Sri Krishna too was God and he had 360 ‘gopis’ (milkmaids) with whom he enacted ‘Prem lila’ (love drama). Even then people regarded him as God. So, there is nothing to be surprised at it’ (The Economic Times, 28 August 2017, accessed online). Interestingly, one could reasonably wonder whether this same kind of religious justification feeds into the Indian common masses’ pervasive silence, ambivalence and patience towards endemic revelations of corruptions on the part their own elected political leaders and ministers (see Maharatna 2013: Chapter 11).
- 12.
For an illuminating discussion on the moral dimensions—distinct from power dimensions—of corruption and also on the implications of neglecting the former, as it is often done in the existing economic literature on corruption, see Schwenke (2000).
- 13.
The importance of this question can hardly be weighed down by citing some sporadic newspaper reported episodes of a taxi-driver returning to the rider a bagful of jewellery or cash left unmindfully behind in the taxi after the ride. But this does not disprove the validity of the basic general point being made here.
- 14.
Indian Constitution has long been considered as one of the most flexible legal document of the world. While America has made only 26 amendments after the enactment of the Constitution of 1787, and while Britain (of which Constitution is widely considered to be extremely flexible too) has hardly brought about any formal amendment over some centuries, India has introduced more than hundred amendments only within a span of 66 years. This, partly, reflects deviant propensities of successive Indian governments and its rivals in Indian Parliament in relation to original goals and visions of the Constitution, apart, of course, from the fact the Constitution itself has had several loose-ends and contradictions, especially in relation to newly emerged contexts and circumstances along with changing times (Rakshit 2017: 16).
- 15.
Litigation rate in a society depends on various factors such as the quality of societal functioning and of the rule of law, income and prosperity levels, people’s awareness and litigiousness, among others. For example, a recent study, based on India’s state-level data, has found a close positive association between economic measures of development such as state GDP or Human Development Index and state’s litigation rate, and has thereby argued somewhat nebulously that a higher litigation rate can be seen as a good indicator of a higher economic prosperity and human development, debunking the conventional and common-sense view that litigation rate does reflect the degree of litigiousness and malfunctioning in the society concerned (Eisenberg et al. 2013). This sort of too simplistic (or mechanical) argument ignores the crucial fact that low incomes or high poverty would deter people from resorting to court litigation, as there is a considerable cost of carrying on a court litigation, despite gross injustices being meted out to them. The bottom line is that income level of a state, inter alias, could be a factor determining its litigation rate, not the vice versa.
- 16.
Indian mainstream media, intelligentsia and political elites hardly take notice of such aberrations of somewhat malleable—or ‘broader’ in Amartya Sen’s terminology—notion of Indian secularism, let alone raising of democratic voice against such mingling of one single religious strand with the public-funded satellite mission in a secular nation (except few routinized voices raised by some voluntary organizations such as Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations; see ‘Rationalists flay ISRO chief for taking Mars mission replica to temple’, Deccan Herald, Wednesday 7 June 2017).
- 17.
For example, Amartya Sen (2005: Chapter 14) has categorized the major critiques of Indian variety of secularism into six broad strands or lines of argument, none of which refers to the mixing of state with religious matters as a major point of criticism of Indian broader approach to secularism wherein the state keeps equidistance from all religions.
- 18.
Of course, there has been a long-standing debate on the role and ramifications of the British colonial rule in India’s overall modernization and development over about two and half centuries. See, for example, a recent book by Shashi Tharoor (2016) and the references therein for the basic arguments and counterarguments on both sides of the debate.
- 19.
Of course ‘untouchability’ as a horrific inhuman phenomenon (almost equivalent to the scar of slavery)—though originally a part of basic caste system and hierarchy—has been successfully undermined (and perhaps even scrubbed out of public sphere) since India’s Independence. But, as Anderson (2015: 127) notes, ‘untouchability was banned, caste itself [was] left untouched’. In a similar vein, a recent brisk survey of the Indian debates and sociopolitical reality pertaining inter alias to castes by Manoranjan Mohanty concludes: ‘while caste inequality is increasingly despised in contemporary India and special measures for deprived castes continue to be favoured, upper castes still dominate the structures of state power at the turn of [20th] century. This situation of contradictory trends and intensified struggles is likely to continue well through the 21st century’ (Mohanty 2004: 40, italics added).
- 20.
Some scholars, by drawing attention to the advancements made by Indian scientists or artists or poets as well as to some of their inspired attempts at nurturing indigenous Indian sciences, have argued for a notion of ‘Indian national modernity’ (Chatterjee 2010: 146–150).
- 21.
See the news-item titled, ‘Sambhal barbers at the receiving end of caste’, The Hindu, 20 May 2017, p. 9.
- 22.
A few authors (including a section of media) have focused almost exclusively on India’s remarkably glorious economic future, prosperity and global position/power ahead, if not already, along with its increasing liberalization policy and neo-liberal reforms of its economy (e.g. Panagariya 2008; Bhagwati and Panagariya 2012, 2013, among others). Such accounts of a ‘shinning India’ generally wish away—implicitly or explicitly—the accompanying sociopolitical instabilities and their backlash and overflowing contradictions (presumably) on a ground or belief that the latter temporary distortions would be, rather automatically, taken care of in the wake of continued rapid economic growth impelled by the economy’s further reforms and liberalization. However, a recent paper, after examining the question of whether India can be considered as an ‘emerging global power’, concludes that ‘[o]nly an inclusive and all-round developmental agenda can allow India’s inclusion in the “great power” club in a true sense, where development of its people will coincide with the development of the nation’ (Mohanty 2017: 29).
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Maharatna, A. (2019). Indian Metamorphosis. In: The Indian Metamorphosis. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0797-3_1
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