With
the fall of Berlin wall, and disintegration of Russia and Eastern
Europe, communism has lost its favor and repute and the world has
opened up in favor of market led economic and social order. Much
earlier than this devastation, China had become a socialist market
economy. India entered into this liberalization game much later.
P.V.Narasimha Rao, the architect of reform process adopted the most
feasible route of leaving vested interests undisturbed thus keeping
them in good humor and talked about changing India, by paradigm shift
and sought to align the Indian economic forces with Western capital.
Both he and his deputy, Dr. Singh, the Finance minister (who later
became Prime Minister for two terms) worked extra time, to unearth the
quotes from Jawaharlal Nehru in order to exemplify that Nehru’s vision
had a lot of resemblance of revision of economic policy by congress. A
clever ploy to bring Nehru and his congress tradition to dismantle
their own economic edifice in the changed circumstances.
The party leaders who once prided themselves in having helped to consolidate the forces of nation state making, started presiding over its own disintegration and destruction by not sequencing reforms properly and not undertaking relevant reforms for the poor.
China and India are destined to become great economic powers, experts forecast by looking at a host of indicators. In many respects, China is forgoing ahead, as it can afford to work with a brand of democracy denying full fledged political liberalization.
The central element of communality between China and India, despite differing political systems and structure is that, modern day politicians have different perception/ambition lacking vision to take the country forward and usher in social equity.
Most Chinese see today’s cadres as “Contented Pie”. The old style heroes or leaders, (like our Indian counterpart, before freedom) used to be ordinary proletarians. Members of police, soldiers in army, high-level cadres, plotting or politicking the success of reform do not definitely aim to social good. Individual greed has fully manifested. Earlier set of leaders behaved in a selfless way; they were considerate and kind to their sub-ordinates and egalitarian in perspective.
In the current capitalist order, where privatization has become barbarization, without modern heroes, socialist ideals and art, real concern for the poor will not have any soul.
Everyone knows about the Indian brand of democracy. For long, ‘the cupduious devotion to one party rule’ was the bane of Indian politics. True, since mid-90’s, a kind of co-operative federalism- a variant of coalition politics, aligning with regional parties came to the fore, but only to underline the inevitability of the much discredited party riding on ‘image’ and ‘charisma’. With the exception of RSS backed BJP and the leftists who are also loosing votes in their own traditional strongholds, there is nothing in any political party which could be distinguished from others. Until recently the critical inability of big political parties to deliver the goods beyond narrow sectarian interests was obvious.
Elections in the last decade or so give demonstrable evidence that national interest required all-round growth which cannot consistently tend to exclude social equity and grass-roots sharing of power. The time has come that the rapacious greed of minuscule minority of economic vested interests must be also matched by some minimum attempts to do some thing tangible for the vulnerable segment of the society. Broadening of democracy and political power play, do not guarantee any kind of material equity to the majority of poor people.
Emergence of fragmented military groups in a failed and falling democracy is the natural derivative, but again they can’t go beyond a limit. But so long as, the less the space that elite sectional interest are willing to provide to others and the suppressed class are determined to retaliate by asserting their rights, various shades of militancy might emerge. Communalist/fascist onslaught or a kind of criminal nexus with politicians would attempt to fill the vacuums that will not augur well for the future. China might survive with one party rule. But for how long? Will not the bottled up pressures explode at one stage? The demand for smaller states in India invoking some kind of justification is also a reminder that every thing is not well with India. China and India might be emerging like raging tigers in so far as accelerating the growth. But, if they don’t correct the regional imbalances, and allow wealth accumulation process to peculate down, deep into the hands of hard working population, the very high profile growth scenario will create more problems. Let these two emerging powers engage themselves in a more honest way to render justice to their own lesser privileged segments by all possible means. Better late, than never.
The party leaders who once prided themselves in having helped to consolidate the forces of nation state making, started presiding over its own disintegration and destruction by not sequencing reforms properly and not undertaking relevant reforms for the poor.
China and India are destined to become great economic powers, experts forecast by looking at a host of indicators. In many respects, China is forgoing ahead, as it can afford to work with a brand of democracy denying full fledged political liberalization.
The central element of communality between China and India, despite differing political systems and structure is that, modern day politicians have different perception/ambition lacking vision to take the country forward and usher in social equity.
Most Chinese see today’s cadres as “Contented Pie”. The old style heroes or leaders, (like our Indian counterpart, before freedom) used to be ordinary proletarians. Members of police, soldiers in army, high-level cadres, plotting or politicking the success of reform do not definitely aim to social good. Individual greed has fully manifested. Earlier set of leaders behaved in a selfless way; they were considerate and kind to their sub-ordinates and egalitarian in perspective.
In the current capitalist order, where privatization has become barbarization, without modern heroes, socialist ideals and art, real concern for the poor will not have any soul.
Everyone knows about the Indian brand of democracy. For long, ‘the cupduious devotion to one party rule’ was the bane of Indian politics. True, since mid-90’s, a kind of co-operative federalism- a variant of coalition politics, aligning with regional parties came to the fore, but only to underline the inevitability of the much discredited party riding on ‘image’ and ‘charisma’. With the exception of RSS backed BJP and the leftists who are also loosing votes in their own traditional strongholds, there is nothing in any political party which could be distinguished from others. Until recently the critical inability of big political parties to deliver the goods beyond narrow sectarian interests was obvious.
Elections in the last decade or so give demonstrable evidence that national interest required all-round growth which cannot consistently tend to exclude social equity and grass-roots sharing of power. The time has come that the rapacious greed of minuscule minority of economic vested interests must be also matched by some minimum attempts to do some thing tangible for the vulnerable segment of the society. Broadening of democracy and political power play, do not guarantee any kind of material equity to the majority of poor people.
Emergence of fragmented military groups in a failed and falling democracy is the natural derivative, but again they can’t go beyond a limit. But so long as, the less the space that elite sectional interest are willing to provide to others and the suppressed class are determined to retaliate by asserting their rights, various shades of militancy might emerge. Communalist/fascist onslaught or a kind of criminal nexus with politicians would attempt to fill the vacuums that will not augur well for the future. China might survive with one party rule. But for how long? Will not the bottled up pressures explode at one stage? The demand for smaller states in India invoking some kind of justification is also a reminder that every thing is not well with India. China and India might be emerging like raging tigers in so far as accelerating the growth. But, if they don’t correct the regional imbalances, and allow wealth accumulation process to peculate down, deep into the hands of hard working population, the very high profile growth scenario will create more problems. Let these two emerging powers engage themselves in a more honest way to render justice to their own lesser privileged segments by all possible means. Better late, than never.
