The Autonomy is for India

I agree with the poster here. India needs a federal system, a union of fairly independent states. In fact this type of system is even more appropriate for India due to the linguistic difference between the states. Each state of India has vastly different economic and social considerations....some are rich, industrialized and orderly and others are poor, agricultural and lawless. The current state of affairs inherently causes seperatist tendencies, as the cultures of each state are unique. For example I can understand that Tamilians are wary of the imposition of Hindi as the one and only official language. The current system tries to FORGE a unified national spirit. Instead the government should look to DEFINE a national spirit based on the entire heritage of territories under government control.

The governments role in the states should be limited to protecting certain individual rights that all Indians deserve...i.e. freedom of Religion, Movement, Speech, etc....as defined in the constitution. Some responsibilities may be sub-contracted to individual state governments, such as a state court system etc. Outside of the states the government must provide for the common defense and conduct all foreign relations.

Permitting a special status for Kashmir will necessarily create tension amongst other `fringe` states for similar status. Therefore the only way to solve the Kashmir issue, along with other cultural seperatist movements, is by granting aditional freedoms and responsiblities to all the states equally.

One advantage of this is that it will allow the government to concentrate its effort on backward states like Bihar, while allowing richer states to continue economic liberalisation unhindered. This will increase government revenue through taxes, which it can put to use in uplifting the poor states.

the whole of india would breakup into different countries leading to a subcontinental balkanisation. the case of the US cannot be applied here in india as every province has it`s own language and culture unlike the americans.

Dear Bilal,

I agree that there should be a dialogue on ethnicity in Pakistan, and hopefully that is what you and I are having. You also write that a `` tension clearly exists between the core (Punjab and Islamabad) and periphery and semi-periphery (smaller provinces, including the so-called Mohajirs). ``

While you agree that the issues are pointed out are legitimate ones, but then dismiss them as being relevant to more homogenous societies than Pakistan. I beg to disagree, and think those - and not issues of ethnicity - are the ones we should focus on. I say say for the following reasons: (a) if we are able to address the issues I mention, we will achieve economic security, physical security, healthy physical surroundings. This will allow our people to direct their attention to fulfilling activities - like scientific and technological achievements and the development of the arts - rather than struggling to achieve economic security by fair means or foul. For these reasons I beg to maintain my position that by diverting from these issues and bringing up issues of ethnicity (or religion or whatever) we are not doing any service to anyone -least of all to the people we think we are representing. Furthermore, there are many, many countries in the world that have less homogenous populations than Pakistan in terms of ethnicity, religion and so forth.

With respect to your above-mentioned statement, if you have any specific issues with the Panjabis or with Islamabad (by which I assume you mean the central government), could you state them more specifically?

In response to tahmed321 (Reply # 41)

Dear Ahmed:

In my previous post, I wrote: “In Pakistan, there is a growing frustration among various ethno-linguistic groups. Why? This is an important research question.” The last sentence was added to indicate the difficulty of providing an answer that is both easy and sufficiently good.

Your preamble concerning the roots of frustration is reasonably good for a culturally homogenous population. In multicultural societies, like Pakistan, one has to deal with an additional number of cultural variables and questions. A lack of sensitivity for the cultural questions often leads to various forms of cultural politics (and even cultural nationalism). In the case of Pakistan, a tension clearly exists between the core (Punjab and Islamabad) and periphery and semi-periphery (smaller provinces, including the so-called Mohajirs). This is problem that even General Musharraf has acknowledged in his speech of October 17, 2000. The trick to resolve “ethno-linguistic” issues lies in internalizing such issues in the national discourse (and not avoiding them under the guise of our dominant/official national discourse).

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

The more I think, it seems to me that further division of states in India is a good idea. In case i am forgetting something, so far there are no two states where the same language other than Hindi is spoken. If that happens, which will happen if a Vidarbah or a Telengana is created, that will be another good step towards devolution of power. That may diminish some lingusitic chauvinism that once in a while (not that often) surfaces.

The linguistic basis for states perhaps was a good idea just after independence. I think other factors should come into play now. Similar to the example of Bhopal having been far from Bilaspur, until recently to go from Bhubaneswar (capital of Orissa) to Rourkela by train one had to go through West Bengal, then Bihar and then back to Orissa.

Besides the movements that are mentioned in the other articles, two others that i have read about are Gorkhland in the north part of the state of West Bengal and Kosala in the western part of the state of Orissa.

cheers

crb

Dear Bilal #39 you write: ``In Pakistan, there is a growing frustration among various ethno-linguistic groups. Why?``

Frustration is first and foremost with individuals. In Pakistan, I think the major frustrations are (a) economic insecurity; (b) physical insecurity; (c) poor public sevices; (d) deteriorating urban environment. These frustrations are shared by most Pakistanis (and indeed by people living in other third world countrys). If you agree that these are some of the fundamental frustrations, then I ask you: where does the need arise to start talking about frustrations by ``ethno-linguistic groups``? Does such talk not simply detract attention from the real problems?

re: mohajir # 40

Thanks for posting this interesting article.

As a Chattisgarhi I need to make a few corrections. Chattisgarh constitutes not 7 but 16 districts of Madhya Pradesh. It is 1.5 times the size of Portugal, 4 times the size of Belgium and close to the size of Bangladesh. MP before this division was larger than Unified Germany. The agitation for Chattisgarh wasn`t active since there was consensus among all political parties on this issue. The Prathak Chattisgarh Sangharsh Samiti (literal translation: Separate 36-Forts Struggle Committee) was an all party body which formed a consensus early on.

The treatment that Chattisgarh got from western MP has been pathetic. They hadn`t even bothered to connect Bhopal to Chattisgarh properly. The fastest way to go from Bilaspur (central Chattisgarh) to Bhopal is through Nagpur in Maharashtra (now the focus of the Vidharba movement and formerly the capital of Central Provinces & Berar of which Chattisgarh was a part). It takes 18 hrs to reach Bhopal from Bilaspur by train (which is the fastest way). This is the main reason why there is a demand for a separate state. Bhopal as joint capital defeats the whole purpose of a separate state. The article has properly described the injustice in resource allocation that Chattisgarh has endured inspite of being a major revenue contributor.

As an ethnic Andhra and with relatives in Andhra Pradesh I must state that there is a significant difference between Chattisgarh and Telangana. Hyderabad, the capital of AP, is in Telangana. This is quite unlike the case with Chattisgarh. Most of the population of AP is in coastal Andhra which produces most of the revenue too. I wouldn`t be surprised if it turns out that Telangana is actually getting a bigger share than what it contributes. The CM Chandrababu Naidu belongs to Telangana. Telugu is spoken by the vast majority in Telangana too which isn`t clear from the way the author of this article put it. Again this is different from Chattisgarh where Chattisgarhi is a distinct dialect. Coastal Andhra, apart from offering an educated population that is currently driving the software boom of Hyderabad and the rest of India, actually provides a long coastline for Telangana and Rayalaseema (the south-western part of AP, bordering Karnataka, TN). The coast offers ports for exports if Telangana develops industries. MP, in contrast is land-locked like Chattisgarh. They could have developed better links with Maharashtra and Gujarat with whom they have common borders and cultural links. Unfortunately, despite eating up Chattisgarh`s revenue, MP hasn`t even emulated the business culture of these states. Chattisgarh with its revenue can connect itself better to Orissa, AP and Maharashtra for ports. I do not see why Telangana should give up this opportunity when it doesn`t have a similar history of exploitation. The case is similar for Vidarbha though they may have genuine grievances in that Bombay dominates Maharashtra and probably takes away resources from the Nagpur region.

On a different note, Habib Tanvir is highly respected and loved in Chattisgarh. Though I haven`t seen any of his plays my parents still talk about ``Charan Das Chor`` and his other plays. I can see a Habib Tanvir School of Arts in the not too distant future in one of the Chattisgarhi Universities.

Ashish

Hi - your article was a good read but would like to add my ... - though not well versed with the politics of either India or the US.

The objective - India`s growth.

The soln - autonomy - diluted whatever.

My two cents - things seemingly detrimental to a countrys growth and unfortunately most synonymous with India (from the common mans persp) are -

poverty

corruption, corruption and more corruption

red-tapeism (plain non-cooperation)

this article fails to touch these various ism`s or am i not reading betw the lines sufficiently.

The changing map of India

By M.A.H.

IF the National Democratic Alliance government thought that just as the Bill to carve out three new states of Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal, and Jharkhand (making a total of twenty eight states) out of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar, respectively, had a safe passage through the two houses of parliament,despite some demurral from three of its constituents - Biju Janata Dal, the Shrimoni Akali Dal and the Telugu Desam Party - their establishment, on the ground, would be trouble free, it had interpreted the political weather map somewhat incorrectly.

No sooner was the Bill passed than the BJD raised a voice that the sixteen districts of Bihar, which would constitute the new Jharkhand state, should have been transferred to Orissa; the maverick president of Rashtriya Janata Dal, Laloo Prasad Yadav, deprived of the Golden Triangle of Chhotta-Nagpur, demanded a compensation of a staggering Rs 1,800 billion from New Delhi; and, the Bhopalis, sulking at the loss of a magnificently-rich-in-mineral-resources Chhattisgarh, which has been providing more than half the revenues of MP, proposed that Bhopal should be the joint capital of MP and Chhattisgarh.

From the integration of 565 princely states of varying sizes, to Fazl Ali States Reorganization Commission`s linguistic states in 1956 and the bifurcation of Bombay into two separate states of Maharashtra and Gujrat in 1960, to the trisection of the Punjab in 1966, and the birth of the `seven sisters` in the north-east in 1971, (one of them, Mizoram has a population of 700,000 and another, Nagaland declared English to be the official language), to the graduation of Goa (population of 1.2 million) to statehood in 1987, the creation of three new states is a phenomenon the Indians are not unfamiliar with.

That, since 1956, several large states had been divided into smaller states is an indication that the linguistic divisions of states, by Fazl Ali Commission, were wrong. The commission had not recognized the diversity of cultural strains and had ignored the techno-economic, administrative, environmental, ethnic, and even geographic considerations. Flaunting the banner of Hindi, and subsuming local linguistic zones, local cultural areas, and different racial and cultural groups, such mammoth states, in terms of both geographical spread and demographic size, like UP, MP and Bihar were created. Two of them, UP and Bihar, are the poorest and the most backward states in India. And Bihar and MP enjoyed harvests of economic intermezzo at the cost, mismanagement and neglect of resource-rich Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh regions. Other states were neither homogeneous nor contained satisfactory constituent units.

Bihar is under threat of another partition. The area north of the Ganges, called Mithili, is one of the most densely populated parts of the world. It has no mineral resources. Soil being fertile, its economy is strictly agricultural, main crops being cotton, indigo, sugarcane, rice, etc. About 5% of its people live below the poverty line. It has its own mature language, Maithili, and its distinctive culture. [I had referred to this in my article `Madhubani in Islamabad`: Dawn, 11 April, 1999.]

The Buddha, Mahavira (the founder of Jainism), Sita, and the great poets, Valmiki, Kalidas and Vidyapathi, were all Maithilis. The Maithili-speaking population in this area was recorded at 14 million in the 1931 census, but in the census after independence, the number was drastically reduced. Their language was displaced with a view to assimilating them into a Hindi-speaking belt! The pro-Maithili organizations are now demanding the partition of an already truncated Bihar.

The formation of three new states has given further impetus to the old demand of the Gorkha National Liberal Front for the creation of a state out of the hill districts of West Bengal. The Bodos have again raised their demand for Bodoland. The Garos, in Meghalaya, have stepped up their activities for their own state to be called Garoland.

But New Delhi will face increasing pressure from the states of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, where, in the two regions of Telengana and Vidarbha, respectively, there is a renewed regional assertiveness and a vigorous agitation for affirming the local cultural identity. Despite the start of a movement for a separate Telengana state in 1952, the Telugu-speaking districts of Madras were merged with Andhra Pradesh. But the movement did not die down.

There was a violent upsurge in 1969-70, when about 300 Telengana protagonists were killed. Before the last general elections, the BJP had made a pledge to grant statehood to the region, but, in order to placate its ally, the ruling Telugu Desam Party, in Andhra Pradesh, it has been shuffling its feet.

One of the main grievances, of the supporters of Telengana is that the region had been left out of economic progress for the last four or so decades. According to them, during these years, the state government had spent only Rs 0.88 billion per year in the Telengana area, while Rs 4.2 billion per year had been spent in the Andhra region. Even, Andhra Pradesh`s Majlis-i-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen has indicated its inclination to support the demand for giving full statehood to Telengana.

To the north of Andhra Pradesh is another politically disturbed region of Vidarbha in Maharashtra state. Mostly consisting of the districts of the former Central Provinces and Berar, Vidarbha was merged with Bombay / Maharashtra, at the time of the reorganization of states in 1956. Simultaneously, it also marked the beginning of an agitation to form a separate state of Vidarbha. Though neglected, it is rich in minerals, especially iron, and produces electricity surplus to its requirements at very low cost as compared to the main Maharashtra region. The BJP election promise to grant statehood to Vidarbha has not been fulfilled; and, the Congress is spearheading the current agitation for a separate state.

Coming back to the three new states, which will start functioning from the first week of November, I had written about Jharkhand (``Statehood for Jharkhand on Cards`` - Dawn, 18 March, 1998), ``That a Jharkhand with full statehood... will come into existence is not in doubt.``

But a statehood for Chhattisgarh, comprising only seven eastern districts of Madhya Pradesh and, mostly inhabitated by `scheduled tribes`, was a surprise, because the docile Chhattisgarhis had not even seriously agitated for it.

Not only is Chhattisgarh rich in minerals and forest products, it is also the `rice bowl` of Madhya Pradesh. Watered by the Mahanadi and its tributaries, the great plain of Chhattisgarh produces 10,000 (yes, ten thousand) varieties of rice! It has proven reserves of 1,700 million tons of haematite iron ore, and one of its coal mines has a reserve of 200 million tons. Taking the whole of MP into consideration, Chhattisgarh has 95% of iron ore, 58% of limestone, 57% of bauxite, 42% of coal and 60 per cent of dolomite reserves. It has huge reserves of ruby and diamond.

But, so far, only 10 per cent of the income from minerals had been spent in Chhattisgarh. Though it had been contributing more than 50 per cent of the total revenues of MP, the expenditure on the infrastructure had been insignificant. There was government neglect. There was overall underdevelopment resulting in regional frustration, and a feeling set in that Chhattisgarh was being treated as a colony of Madhya Pradesh.

The socio-cultural milieu of Chhattisgarh is totally different from the rest of Madhya Pradesh. Its recorded history dates back to the middle of the fourth century, and it had been an administrative unit under different local rulers. The British retained it, as such, when they took it over from the Marathas in the beginning of the nineteenth century. But Chhattisgarh was not all that visible on the Indian map, either during the British Raj or during the fifty years of independence. It almost lost its identity in disenfranchizement and total alienation.

Nonetheless, at least, three persons (not politicians, who would, now claim credit for the creation of a new state), in their own ways and at different times, acted as catalysts, to crystallize the Chhatisgarhi identity and give fillip to ethnic urges, thereby providing an opportunity to the local people to develop their distinctive literature, thought and culture.

One was that bare-foot Oxford don-turned Indian, Verrier Elwin, who lived among the Chhattisgarhi tribes for years from 1920s to 1940s. His several books eloquently reminded the Indians to recognize the different social and cultural heritage of the people. He tried to save these people, their culture and language from total degeneration and disintegration. He wrote in his autobiography, ``The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin`` (1964), ``...Chhattisgarhi, which proved very easy to learn and which we still talk at home.``

The other was Shyama Charan Dube, political scientist-cum-sociologist, and an academic, who, in his ``Field Songs of Chhattisgarh``, published in mid-1940s, had argued for a separate province for the region.

And, the third is the Urdu-speaking Chhattisgarhi, Habib Tanvir, theatre pioneer, poet, playwright / dramatist, stage / film actor, stage director, former editor of Naya Adab, the organ of the Progressive Writers` Association, folk-song singer, and a former nominated member of the Raja Sabha, all rolled in one, whose innumerable Chhattisgarhi plays (staged in India and abroad), with subtle irony, elegant wit and ruthless satire, revived the forgotten Chhattisgarhi traditions, and asserted the distinctive identity of the region. More than anyone else, it was Habib Tanvir who put Chhattisgarh in a prominent place on the Indian map.

Now, the question is which party / parties will rule these three new states. The BJP is comfortably placed in Uttarranchal with 53 per cent seats of the new state assembly. But, in Jharkhand, it is a dicey situation for the BJP with a slender majority of one.

http://www.dawn.com/2000/10/17/op.htm

In response to tahmed321 (Reply # 36)

Dear Ahmed:

I once asked a faculty member at the University of Karachi, a close friend of mine who migrated from Aligarh in the mid- to late-1950s, about his identity. He said: “He is a Pakistani.” He, in the 1970s, was nothing but a Pakistani. I have not met him for almost two decades but I would still like to find out if he is to date a Pakistani (I mean only a Pakistani, no Mohajir or nothing of that sort). In Pakistan, there is a growing frustration among various ethno-linguistic groups. Why? This is an important research question.

Do I believe in the division of Pakistan on the basis of ethno-linguistic attributes? My answer is simply no. But, I do believe in the devolution of power from the center to the existing provinces. Are existing provinces ideal appropriate administrative units? I don’t think so. Do I want devolution of power to enhance the power of various ethnic groups at the cost of our union/federation? I don’t think so. I, however, do sympathize with the ethnic-linguistic identities of all Pakistanis. I also disagree with your blank statement, if this is what you meant, about the ethno-linguistic reality in Pakistan.

Pakistan is like a garden. We should not try to make our garden only green otherwise it may loose its beauty. We need all kinds of colors to enhance the beauty of the garden in all kinds of seasons.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

P.S. I have submitted an article to the Chowk on the “Lahore Resolution” and I am currently writing another on the Multicultural character of Pakistan. In my view, Chowk takes too long to post varios submissions. I leave the issue of Mullahism and Madaris for other people to comment.

TAhmed #321

As far as your assertion on ethnic linguistic etc.

Do you agree that Pakistan was rightly created. If so what was the reason. Was it the fear of Hindu domination. If so can they be called communal or were they fighting for their rights and prosperity.

What was Pakistan created for. So that people can progress or we will continue to sacrifice our education, our people everything just to defend its boundaries with no light at the end of tunnel for majority of people.

Re: Tahmed321 #31

``In the US, even non-party members can vote in party primaries. ``

That is not always true -- some states do not allow non-party members to vote in the primaries of the other party (e.g. Michigan, I believe)

Dear Bilal Ahmed,

I am using the term ``ethnic`` in ethnic-chauvinist to mean a member of a particular race or linguistic group or nationality or tribe or caste. Do you disagree with me we should oppose such behavior on anyone`s part, and try not to become one ourselves?

As for the mullahs, I am sure they would not consider themselves to be either negative thinkers (who does) or doomed to being relegated to their original toothless, weaponless position although it may take some time. However, from all indications that is a correct assessment: the mullahs were empowered in the 1980`s not by the people of Pakistan but by General Zia, and their madrassahs are fueled by Arab money it appears. Zia used to siphon off public funds to the madrassahs, and I think that has stopped - but I could be wrong. Do you know?

An interesting article, but confusing many issues, viz, autonomy in defining laws of public governance including criminal law, autonomy in procedures for voting, autonomy in accountability for financial (ir)responsibility and autonomy of political/ethnic identity. Its sometimes difficult to find a connection between the suthor`s various definations of `desirable` autonomy and many current problems in India.

Other posters have clarified many issues related to regional identity, Centre-state relations, Art 356, more effective representation, etc. I want to add a bit on the question of strengthening of institutions and collective responsibility vs autonomy in this regard.

I`m not sure handing Laloo Yadav a Bihar flag would shame his patrons/supporters into misppropriating fewer crores of rupees of public funds or being more accountable to his constitutents. Two more examples from recent news items, firstly one in which FCI(Food Corporation of India) refused to buy substandard grain from some Punjab farmers. However, so many farmers would suffer irreparable loss and indebtedness thar the farmers groups threatened to agitate in a big way against FCI policy. Finally FCI relaxed its standards and resumed procurement. The issue of substandard grain due to disease? has been around for longer than this year. Remember also the cotton farmers of AP a number of whom committed suicide because of failure to sell their crops without debilitating loss.

None of these serious issues really pertains to inadequate political autonomy of the principals involved, which is where the author has put too much emphasis, IMO. In Punjab and AP during these crises, the political parties in power (Akali Dal and Telugu Desam) were also important constituents of the national coalition government. It wasnot the lack of a flag or constitution or the functioning of a common central election commission which gave rise to these situations. And I don`t think a `wholesale` redefination of the states` powers vis-a-vis the Centre is the solution of many such problems in India. IMO, the issue is the strengthening of institutions, which is best done collectively and with more voices speaking up, the better.

In the Punjab grain procurement case(as in the AP cotton farmers` case), the farmers and the Government procurement agency had few or no choices before them, leading to forced decisions which were definately ruinous in either the short term or the long term to all, the government, the farmers as well as the rest of the country. To generate more problem-solving choices for both the farmers and the government and to better handle the problem of substandard grain or bad cotton prices, farmers` marketing/commerce cooperatives or other collective entities would ideally be learning from and coordinating with active and responsive research/development studies to find solutions. Correct me if I am wrong, but there is currently no restriction, political/institutional/financial on the creation/working of such middle-level collective institutions as far as I know. What may be lacking is a public recognition of what is lacking :-), not the laws or constitutional scope provided for existence or working of such institutions. The `middle-level` collective institutions need to be more creative and responsive problem-solvers and its just not a simple question of lacking a flag or referring to the Chief Minister by another name.

Including going after financial corruption, like in Laloo`s Bihar, it doesnot hurt to handle weakened or ineffective institutions by throwing the weight of the entire country`s existing institutions and collective will/responsibility behind first identifying and then solving such problems.

Sadhana

In response to tahmad321 (Reply # 32)

Dear Ahmad:

Your statement: ``The mullahs and the ethnic-chauvinists present too negative an agenda for them to gain any lasting or widespread following.``

Comment: The Mullahs won`t agree with your statement. As long as we fail to invest in the future of our coming generation, Mullahism will have little difficult in reproducing itself. Who are the ethnic chauvinists? Nonetheless, I agree with the ``chauvinist`` part, not the ``ethnic`` part of your statement.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

RE:the interparty democracy issue:

sorry for jumping in late. the answer to this is both yes and no. Politics is seen in the subcontinent as a rewarding line of work and therefore, like any profit-oriented enterprise, you have your share of climbers. so, you`re going to see a fair share of the rear-end kissers who patiently hope for rewards and the angry ones aka dissidents who question authority. This is the closest to IPD in India--as manifested by the various splits in parties--like the RJD/JD mutations in India`s congo and the mutations of the dravidian movement in Tamil Nadu. You name any state or party and you will have your examples. IPD as it exists tends to thrive when what`s discussed tends to be issue driven, but not when it tackles the leadership structure. congressmen will debate for hours even today on the issue of privatization, but will shut up over questioning Sonia.

Indian parties tend to be very personality driven and the lead personalities of each party pretty much drive the show. Mrs G, Naidu, the fat woman of Madras, come to mind. When there is true IPD, it often manifests itself in ugly situations such as the quick implosion of the original Janata Party.

In the true sense of it, I`d say that true IPD does not exist in any party. See Blair and his firm hand with Labour and Hague trying to do his imitation with the Tories.

ahmadb#24 you write ``Majority-minority problem will always haunt the present-day citizens of Pakistan, unless we adopt an alternative, creative, and more humane approach.``

Agreed. It will take time, I think, but we are bound to see greater respect for minorities if current trends continue. The mullahs and the ethnic-chauvinists present too negative an agenda for them to gain any lasting or widespread following.

Thanks crb#28, shammi #27, ASK #26, macgupta #22 for your discussion on intra-party democracy vis-a-vis India, Pakistan and the US. This is not an issue that one finds discussed much in the press in either of our countries, I think. However, I am sure that anyone reading your posts would walk away with a better understanding on some important questions of our times. I will take the liberty of trying to summarize what I have understood from this discussion:

1. Intra-party democracy is an important element of a democratic system.

2. The primary system in the US provides a greater degree of intra-party democracy than India. In the US, even non-party members can vote in party primaries. India in turn has a greater degree of intra-party democracy than Pakistan (the reason explained next).

3. IPD (if I may shorten the term) was prevalent in the Congress from early on and never really had the time to take root in the Muslim League. This may possibly be attributed to (a) the much longer period that the British - and their undoubted strong influence in promoting democratic traditions - were in what is now India; (b) longer period for Congress vs. Muslim League to develop IPD. (c) the role of the election commission in India which is promoting audits of party finances and otherwise encouraging intra-party democracy.

4. While IPD exists still in the Communist Parties and in BJP, it came to an end in the Congress during Indira Gandhi`s time. BJP was rewarded for this with broader national support, while Congress and it`s back-office politicos were ousted. The recent rout of the long-standing party in power in Mexico can also be attributed to greater intra-party democracy practiced by the winning party (I think someone needs to educate our politicians on the importance of intra-party democracy to success in elections).

The above summary is of course no substitute for the posts themselves.

Tahmed

Some people might present an overly pessimistic picture, but the reality is that internal democracy does exist within parties in India though not at such an advanced state as US. I have particularly seen examples of selecting candidates by majority vote within parties during the municipality elections, village Panchayat elections and even at the district and state level. However at the apex, it seems that such examples of democracy are less frequent. For example Congress though highly democratic at the district level, tended to accept the people of Nehru dynasty unquestioningly. However there are several examples when there was a vote of confidence within Congress party in the events of disagreements like the one held between Sitaram Kesri,Sharad Pawar and Pilot a few years back. BJP also seems to hold some kind of party elections to choose its party leader. At the local level, the process is more democratic within BJP in my opinion. I am fully in favor of complete democracy at all levels within the party.

You also raised another question of why democracy could survive in India. Actually democratic institutions were deeply entrenched in India in the form of vilage Panchayats for centuries. Secondly the more appropriate question would be whether India could have survived without democracy. With a multitude of religions and ethnicities, it was impossible to keep united such a large country without giving political representation to all the groups. Had there been no democracy, I doubt if India had survived. Democracy is not a form of government but means of survival for us as a whole. Actually in a multi party democracy, by ensuring a distribution of political power and proportionate representation,the aspirations of diverse ethnicities to participate in the sharing political authority is more or less met. In a true democracy, all the various groups realise their mutual interdependence and convergence of interests by choosing to progress collectively. India still has miles to go in that direction.



Sincerely

Anil

Any response to your article should be based on three considerations. One, what type of autonomy and autonomy in which field are we talking about. Two, is the stage set for a paradigm shift ie. has Indian polity matured to an extent that it can judiciously make use of autonomy to drive the nation`s growth. Three, what kind of a new socio economic order does this type of setting envisage.

The proper starting point for answering the first question can be looking at the Indian Constitution. If my highschool civics does not fail me, there is a union list,state list and concurrent list in the Indian Constitution which demarcates the areas on which center, state and center+state can legislate respectively. Let us examine the effect of increasing the share of states in the revenue by modifying these lists. Some of the states like Gujrat, Maharashtra and Southern states may be able to rein in the fiscal deficit and increase the development fund for their respective regions. But in the short run, this will mean that less money is spend by the center to develop infrastructure of poor states like Bihar, Orissa which are the storehouse of India`s mineral wealth especially iron ore+coal. Any slowdown in these basic heavy industries which are the backbone of the industrial structure will have repercussions on the growth of rich states beside increasing the economic disparity in the country. In short term such factors may lead to the migration of labor taxing the resources of the rich states and affecting their progress. Greater level of economic disparity may disturb the existing socio-economic equilibrium causing a lot of unforeseen problems such as the rise of separatist elements. Hence owing to the mutual interdependence of the Indian states it may be in the collective interest to invest in poor but minerally rich states for a more equitable distribution of wealth and sustained collective economic progress. I realise I have touched only one aspect of the problem but a detailed discussion may be too lengthy for me to write. Meanwhile we may discuss using above questions as the guidelines.

Sincerely

macgupta #22 So, from your description I think one may conclude that India in fact did have inner party democracy to a larger extent than Pakistan. As for the military not taking over the government in India due to the large size of the country, that is probably one factor. I dont think it fully explains everything though. I think our (Pakistani) politicians themselves have (with few exceptions) tended not to nurture democratic traditions in the country. It seems to me that the nurturing of democratic traditions in India is one of Nehru`s great contributions to India (the other is the formation of IITs, which has paid dividends a generation later).

I think in Pakistan we must make inner party democracy a part of the constitution if we are to achieve it in any reasonable time: there is no one among our politicians today who anyone would confuse for the statesman one would need this purpose. So, it falls upon our military, ironically enough, to institutionalize certain key elements of democracy in Pakistan before it leaves power.

Eventhough some parties in India do have party elections, I don`t think they go through a process similar to the US in deciding who should be the party candidate from a constituency. (I just want to differentiate between the process of electing party officials and letting them decide the party candiadates for consistuencies and directly electing the party candiadtes.)

They may have some party meetings where these decisions are made, but it is nowhere near as representative or democratic as in the US. In some states in the US, during the primaries almost any citizen (regardless of their party affiliations) can vote. Nor there is (in India) the coverage associated with primaries here in US.

In the US the primaries are very similar to the real final elections; there is publicity, people go and vote and the newspapers publish who won the primaries and by what margin.

I belive having primaries (if some how we can afford it) will take a democracy to the next step. It will decrease the personality cult now associated with many parties in India.

I am sure if one major party started having this the others will follow through. May be it is a worth while cause to contribute towards the first primaries. I think once people and parties get the hang of it a way for funding it would be found.

(Its amazing the impact the primaries have had in Mexico.)

---

Tahmed321 #20:

My knowledge of Pakistan is mostly from reading Chowk, Dawn and Jang. I am still in the learning phase. So can`t really comment on the last of your

query.

cheers

crb

Re: Tahmed321 #20

``(a) how did the party primary system emerge in the US? through court decisions, or as a result of social changes like an increasingly influential free press? and (b) what is the process through which party democracy can be expected to evolve in India and (c) why did democracy take root in India and not (yet) in Pakistan despite the fact that inner party democracy does not exist in either country.``

ANSWERS:

(a) I think it was a combination of court-rulings and greater transparency afforded by the press

(b)The Congress party had excellent practices for inner democracy from much before Independence through the late 60s. It was only when Mrs. Gandhi destroyed what her father had carefully built that inner-party democracy in the Congress began to wane resulting in several splits. The nadir was during the Emergency, and in her term as PM from 1980-1984. The lack of inner-party democracy manifested itself in the electoral routs of the late 80s and the 90s that the Congress is suffering from even today. By contrast, the BJP HAS inner-party democracy and no cult of personality (unlike the Congress which deifies the Nehru-Gandhi family). The electoral success of the BJP has a lot do with their inner functioning and a semblance of fair play in party politics -- that is why the BJP is more disciplined and has not experienced any splits (something that has happened quite frequently with the Congress), and is able to hold together a complex coalition. The communists also have had much better inner party democracy - although their influence has been very provincial (Kerala and Bengal). In summary, I believe that the electoral `market` has rewarded parties that do have some measure of inner-party democracy (e.g. BJP, Communists, Telegu Desam) and has penalized others that do not (e.g. Congress, Shiv Sena).

(c) I really do not know why -- but here are two theories:

Theory 1 - The struggle for Pakistan by the Muslim League was not a mass struggle/movement (by deliberate design by Jinnah -- Jinnah abhorred Gandhi`s use of unconstitutional, mass-movement methods), whereas the Congress movements were all mass movements (e.g Non-Cooperation Movement, Dandi March to break the salt laws, Quit India Movement, etc.). Thus, the constituents of the Congress had greater exposure/opportunity to experiment with participative, grassroots democracy lasting over 30 years before 1947. (Infact, Gandhi called off the Non-Cooperation Movement in the 1920s after the killing of a few policemen by mobs because he felt that he had overestimated the ability of Indians to launch a civil, peaceful struggle. I believe that he said something like ``I do not wish to see the slavery to the British be replaced by slavery to a non-representative Indian``). Thus, by the time of Independence the Congress Party was far more committed to democractic functioning than was the Muslim League. By contrast, Pakistan went from the Lahore Resolution to a nation state in a mere 7 years -- insufficient time to cultivate democratic functioning at the grass roots level within the party and the country. The people who lived in what became Pakistan had not been acclimatized to grass-roots democracy, as the rest of British India had.

THEORY 2:

Westminster style democracy and the associated institutions (educational, judicial, law and order machinery, civil service) is a gift of the British, and since British rule came relatively late to what is today Pakistan (NWFP 1850s, Punjab 1849, Sindh, Baluchistan, etc.) compared to Bengal, Bihar and UP (1750s), the latter provinces had greater opportunity to absorb, learn and acquire the trappings of law-based governance (although British rule in India was hardly democratic). The fact that Calcutta was the capital of British India for almost 150 years has also helped.

re: tahmed321

The election commission of India had ordered the parties to submit their expenses to independent auditing and also asked for intra-party democracy in the last few elections. Unfortunately, the first order was ignored by most parties. Threats of disqualification haven`t as yet been carried out as disqualifying a major party will rob the electorate of an option. Maybe an example should be set in a small regional election through the disqualification of a major party which will send a message to all parties. The second is more difficult to implement as it involves taking away the freedom of political parties to have their own organizational structures. Even today the Congress does have elections to the AICC, CWC and for party office bearers. Unfortunately, more often than not these turn into sham exercises with infighting leading to factions asking for the ``high command`` to resolve the dispute. The ``high command`` itself goes through a unanimous vote with people in ``smoke filled backrooms`` deciding the outcome. The only parties that religiously go through intra-party elections are the communist parties. The only way to really resolve this issue is for the media to make this an issue. This will happen only if some maverick politician like John McCain rakes up this issue or some watchdog organization springs up to take the challenge. Certainly an idea worth exploring.

Even the American primaries aren`t that transparent. In New York the Republican leadership was trying to prevent McCain from being on the ballot! Intra-party democracy is a difficult task as it depends on the party membership. Constructive media criticism with follow-up can surely help as in the case of McCain who eventually made it to the NY primary.

Ashish

In response to tahmad321 (Reply # 23)

Dear Ahmad:

Your statement: ``I dont think splitting a country (a huge one like India, a middle one like Pakistan, or a small one like Belgium) into more such countries will solve anything.``

Comment: A good response! I wouldn`t say anything, however. Fragmentation would not solve the problem at least in the case of India or Pakistan. For example, how would we divide Sindh into the Sindhi and non-Sindhi parts? It is a serious, yet non-serious proposition! Tolerance is a better proposition. What kind of tolerance, under what kind of rules? This is a problem problem that needs to be resolved with great care.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

P.S. If not evident from my post, I don`t believe in the fragmentation of Sindh, let alone Pakistan. Majority-minority problem will always haunt the present-day citizens of Pakistan, unless we adopt an alternative, creative, and more humane approach.

kinc #21 you dsy ``A real solution to a country where minorities are not represented and fanatic people rule is to split country. ``

I dont think splitting a country (a huge one like India, a middle one like Pakistan, or a small one like Belgium) into more such countries will solve anything. The solution to the minority-majority problem lies in developing human resources so people learn to live with each other in a civilized manner (as has happened gradually in Europe, excepting Balkans, and as happened in the US over the past few decades). And with literate people like you need to take the lead in such efforts rather than coming up with meaningless solutions like splitting countries or calling for an Ataturk.

klnx, dream on !

In reply to tahmed : The following is all based on somewhat vague memory, so take with a pinch of salt.

I believe that the Congress party in India had party elections periodically until sometime during Mrs. Gandhi`s rule.

One of the attractions of the BJP if you were willing to overlook its nastinesses was that it did have party elections.

I also seem to remember that with the rejuvenation of the Election Commission, inner party democracy became more important; with the EC threatening to disqualify parties that did not hold party elections.

Regarding the big question -- why did democracy take hold in India -- I think it was simply because it was so much larger that coups and suspensions of the Constitution have much greater risks for the perpetrators. It is the positive side of having so many separatist movements that Pakistanis fondly hope will split the country.

-arun gupta

crb#19 I think the basic principle of democracy within the party is sound and applies in all countries regardless of the form of government, presidential or parliamentary.

In Pakistan too, we lack the primary system (in other words, democracy within the political parties). This, in my view, has been a major cause for the failure of democratic traditions to take root in Pakistan (so far). If we had a primary system, both Nawaz Sharif and Benazir would probably have been removed from party leadership after they were forced out of office the first time. And we would today have had a responsible democratic government in place, and the military would have had no reason to take power.

I am surprised that India is in the same boat as Pakistan as far as internal party democracy goes. I understand that this was true (in practice, at least) of the US as well until at least the start of the 20th century when political candidates were appointed in the proverbial ``smoke-filled back offices``. The interesting questions to my mind are so much that whether the internal party democracy applies to India (I think the answer is a clear yes), but rather (a) how did the party primary system emerge in the US? through court decisions, or as a result of social changes like an increasingly influential free press? and (b) what is the process through which party democracy can be expected to evolve in India and (c) why did democracy take root in India and not (yet) in Pakistan despite the fact that inner party democracy does not exist in either country.

I would appreciate any thoughts on this from you or anyone else on chowk.

Anil,

A real solution to a country where minorities are not represented and fanatic people rule is to split country. It should have happened at the partition, but many ethnic groups such as Sikhs in Punjab, Telugos in Andhra Pradesh, Muslims in Indian Kashmir, Assam (ULFA), and others realized only after years of oppression by the government.

Just like soviet union, it is going to happen in India, in a matter of time and with few more sacrifices.

I have some thoughts on a related issue.

I was wondering if it would make sense to hold primaries in the Indian parliamentary system.

For people who may not be familiar with the primary system: In the US before the real election

different parties hold their own election to decide who will be the candidate for that constituency. Thus the persons who contest the final election, are not handpicked or chosen

by the high command (as in India) but are rather chosen by the people in that constituency who

belong to that party. The last condition may vary between states.

I wish some bold parties in India adopt this approach. As it happened in Mexico, this

will give a lot of visibility to that party and perhaps others will follow suit.

In the absence of such a bottom up procedure, currently too much power in a party is with the party bosses. Currently, the election of party leaders (or legislative leaders) in Indian political parties is almost a farce.

It seems to me that if the Congress-I (or most parties for that matter) had

a primary system and the Congress MPs were

chosen as candidates through a primary (instead of being picked by the state/center party bosses)

then they would elect a different opposition leader than the one elected now.

I realize that there is big difference between the parliamentary system in India and the presidential system in the US. Are there other democracies

with a parliamentary system that have primaries?

Also, a big concern would be the cost asociated with holding primaries.

I hope someone from BJP is listening. May be then can be a trend setter and have primaries.

cheers

crb

Anil : A well written article. A really thought provoking issue.

Rdesikan #: 13 and SameerJB #: 15 : Thanks for the additional insight.

I agree with Anil that we should move towards more state power. The States doing well should be rewarded for their good

work. I would advocate a slow move towards more economic freedom first. I am not sure if more than economic power will be

that beneficial. After all Shiv Sena was in power in Maharashtra and with that much power they could wreck havoc. We have a

lot of stability because India is so big and we have a a really good constitution. Small states in developing countries are easily

taken over by a bunch of crooks.

The economic competition has already started. When Gates and Dell were in India Chief Ministers from AP, Karnataka

and even UP went to meet them to attract business to their states. A lot of states are opening software export zones and are

competing for business. But we have a long way to go and as they say ``we have miles to walk before we can sleep....``

Faruk

A la Mohajir--a story worth checking out -- in the latest Far Eastern Economic Review--Guiding Lights; Success breeds success in Silicon Valley as Indianbusinessmen share their knowledge

http://www.feer.com/_0010_19/p46innov.html

Hmmm. We have too much economic disparity between states for autonomy to work (although you can argue that not having autonomy is what caused this..but its too late now). A handful of wealthy states are the source of almost all of New Delhi`s revenues and with autonomy, they surely would not send the cash over as easily.

Bihar runs like its own little banana republic with or without federal approval and look what happens there. On the other hand, Kerala and Karnataka, and AP have benefited greatly from not having the ladoo-popping overweight clowns in Delhi meddling in their affairs.

It may work in the long term but we aren`t ready for it yet.

Anil:

I could have sworn I have read this article elsewhere before.

Are you sure that India has reached a level of maturity in its political discourse where it is ready to adopt ideas of state autonomy? Different democratic societies have taken different routes towards attaining that goal. Even the US which you have tried to use as a model has gone through a tumultuous time demarcating state and federal jurisdictions. Even the presidential debate a few days ago showed Bush and Gore differing on the issue with regard to enforcement of a potential hate-crimes law. And you of course would know about the continuing debate about internet taxation.

I would be interested in knowing your thoughts about a PRACTICAL approach that an emerging democratic superpower like India can adopt to try and limit the role of the omnipresent federal structures thereby granting more autonomy to the states. The alternative is the usual poppycock academic talk laced with terms like devolution and confederation in which case I shall excuse myself and look for intellectual stimulation elsewhere.

later

-sac

Anil: A very sensible and well organized forward looking proposal. Such proposals must be be tested at pilot-plant level before applying broadly over all of Indian states. A good starting point would be to select one or two states, say Karnataka and Assam, to draw their own state constitution guarenteeing state rights roughly what you are proposing. Both in India and Pakistan, states are bigger than most countries of the world. It is imperative to dilute even states power down to district and ``tehsil`` level, with enough power to make serious decisions regarding law and order, dispensing justice, curriculum boards to select textbooks, culture-related issue and practically all affairs of governing, except foreign trade, defense, foreign affairs, election comission, traffic laws and so on.

What is necessary for India is equally necessary for Pakistan. I wonder how long it took you to come up with a fine basic proposals; it took Pakistani government with all the hoopla, roughly 6-8 months to come up with 6-point proposal. It is not difficult for one to extrapolate the time it would take to actually implement it - [after considering the recommendations of the 3rd Review Committee to make amendments to the amendments suggested by the 2nd Review Committee to the feasiblity studies by the Review Committee to study the original proposals by..........].

Just like in India, all Pakistani provinces/ states are not linguistically homogeneous. It is not advisable for any state to stress on one particular language. In Punjab, for example, many Saraikis conside their language distint and separate from Punjabi. Even creation of new provinces like Saraikistan does not solve the problem because within Saraikistan, there are large pockets of non-Saraiki speaking people and in places like district Bahawalnagar, they outnumber Saraikis almost 9 to 1. That is why, the power should be so diluted within state that basic human rights (like language) of the people could not be violated. Actually, I think, districts should get most of the share of provincial taxes, after provincial share of the overall revenues is increased. This is one of the possible way to decrease the power of the center and their spending habits.

Another beneficial outcome of increased powers of provinces/ States and districts, which you forgot to mention, has to do with Indo-Pak relations at the masses level. Conside some of my random proposals, provided Centers to not have the powers to override the states decisions except for defence and currency matters:

1) Different districts can strike cultural deals across the borders, as sister-cities or brother-districts, local sporting teams playing friendly matches, mushairas, music functions etc.

2) Universites can strike deals as joint seminars and joint semesters. For example Punjab University Lahore and some University in Amritsar.

3) Pakistani and Indian Punjab can mutually grant no-visa entry to say 500 eminent Punjabis on each side of the border (sort of honorary citizens).

4) Allowing and entertaining large number of people during certain Sikh religious, Sufis Urs and other festive occasions.

4) Rajputs of Sindh and Rajhistan or Karachi-UP cultural exchanges.

5) Trading partnerships.

6) A relationship between highly entrepenurial cities of Sialkot and Jammu might solve part of the Kashmir problem. Oooooops!!!!

What is good for Indians is also good for Pakistanis.

Stop the desis bashing each other and start a desi friendship somewhere in the Sub-Continent.

Re Mohajir #6

sorry for the misread and assuming you were the mothsmoke dude. Missed the top part of your response. But still, whoever you are, you sure do a nice job of posting interesting stories from around the web.

Anil,

Excellent article. You make some very good points--but this is more like a wish list--and that is the way one should start with even though the end point may well be a compromise--though a step forward every which way.

However, we are already seeing a slow but steady movement in that direction with the collapse of the Congress and the coaltions which for the first time have given the taste of power to the regional parties. It was alwas a UP/Hindi belt driven govt for the longest time. States now have the upper hand, rightly or wrongly in the centre-state relationship--as we saw with the fat lady of Madras causing a fresh set of elections or Mr. Naidu and his temper tantrums over subsidies for Mamata lately. This may appear bad, but it is actually a damn good thing from a devolution point of view. Also, isn`t UP in the process of being cut up into 3 states?

Remember the old days when Mrs G changed state governers and CMs like undergarments? The responsibilities of state govts should be to the people who elected them, not to the levers that control the ruling central party.

That said, there are some more barriers to a devolution by the centre. Thanks to Nehru and his misguided Fabian socialism, India adopted a top down centralism that will be hard to shake. Admittedly, the results of capitalism vs statism/communism weren`t there yet and this was a market test of two differing ideologies. We just happened to make the wrong choice.

One of Nehru`s biggest mistakes, of course with hindsight being a perfect 20/20, was getting the centre involved with industry. The state is saddles with a huge assortment of white elephants which are strategically placed all over the country. Bringing accountability to these mis-ventures alone will prove to be an ugly task. These companies never had a profit motive and knew that the centre was always there for the extra money. Think of those morbid behemoths--Coal India, SAIL--the steel authority, telephones, banking, insurance, etc. We are already seeing some selloffs which is a good sign. But all the good horses will go and the centre will be left with the handicapped donkeys.

Seeing the centre do it, the states also followed their own misinterpretation of control economy via various state electricity and infrastructure boards that are nothing but a boondogle designed to strip the state of cash flow/revenues.

While some have questioned the viability of the US model, there are some terrific lessons we can learn from them--specially when it comes to attracting industry and jobs. We wee it every time some company wants to open a plant hiring 2000 people. Not only do states compete, but counties within the states compete to snag the project. Our earlier generation of politicians have viewed private enterprise with aless than favorable light except when it came to shaking down money at regular intervals. They have never thought of it in terms of jobs and in terms of the imapct of jobs on the local economy in terms of enhanced economic growth to support the additional incomes of the locals.

India has never been a country in the true sense of it. It was alwas an area inhabited by competing kingdoms etc. It took the foreigners to see the initial commonality of the natives. But the last 53 years have been a positive experience in this direction. Most people years ago saw themselves in the following light: caste/religion first, state second, and nationality last. For example, one was a nair first, a keralite second and only Indian later on or a gowda from Bangalore and so on. We all became Indians first only at times of test matches or wars. But this is slowly changing with time and economic development just as the caste system is slowly dissolving away though it may never totally vanish.

Getting people of their subsidies addictions is going to be very, very tough but it can be done, preferably cold-turkey [sorry YLH--I refer to that rapid withdrawal approach, not your dream state]. It is going to be tough on laggards like UP/Bihar and great for the southern states and Maharashtra. The concept of fiscal responsibility and accountability is long overdue.

RE: Mohajir--wonderful sentiments of a level headed person. Man, you shouldn`t have blown your cover. Also enjoyed your back page piece in the Times magazine a while ago [or was it the New Yorker?--getting old, I suppose] that I finally caught up with last weekend.

Sorry for the long winded response.

Some comments on the article :

1. The historical reasons for having a strong Central government in India are manifold. One was the need to integrate the princely states, another was the need to push through land reforms. Yet another was a belief in socialism.

A strong advocate for the strong central government in India was none other than Dr. Ambedkar, who felt that in a federal system, states would neglect remedying the situation of the Dalits.

The one-party rule of Congress also consolidated the central power and undermined the states` powers, quite contrary to the intentions of the Constitution.

The last situation no longer applies, and to the extent the other conditions no longer apply, India can afford to move to a more lose-knit structure.

2. I think the author confuses economic and political issues. Going over the economic issues :

a. The currency-issuing entity (the central government) can have whatever deficits it likes, because it can print money, while the other entities (the states) cannot. This is a matter of fact, and is as true in the United States as in India.

b. As pointed out by the author, the states have poor fiscal discipline and give away far too much for free or below cost ( electricity, water, etc.). Political autonomy doesn`t solve that problem, or at least the author hasn`t demonstrated how it does.

c. The problem of inter-state commerce -- the octroi and levies that hinder movement of goods between states actually suggests that the power to levy these taxes be removed from the states.

In the United States, only Congress -- the central legislature -- has authority over inter-state commerce. If the same held in India, it would actually REDUCE the autonomy of the states.

d. Yes, the parliamentary system does slow things down -- but that is the nature of a democracy. China by central fiat, can accomplish things much faster than India with democratic debate. But I don`t think the author wants less political freedom; he is arguing for more.

The real answer is that redistributing of economic powers between various levels of government is not going to solve anything. The only way is to abolish unnecessary governmental regulatory power, whether it is currently in the Center or in the States.

This too has nothing to do with political autonomy.

3. Going over the political issues : here the author is on firmer ground. There is a case to be made for the Indian states to be more like US states, as individual experiments with democracy. However, this has little to do with economic issues, but rather has to do with bringing every shade of Indian into participating in the political process.

The author is also correct that the United States system explicitly separates powers, in a way that parliamentary systems do not. However, the United States system also tends to reduce political diversity -- for most of history there have been only two viable political parties in the United States. I do not think that this has to do with any peculiarity of American culture; it has to do with the way the chief executives of state and Federal governments are chosen, i.e., it is built into the system.

The parliamentary system in India affords some degree of representation and power to a great many diversities and I do not think that the author has made the case that reducing this will be beneficial.

The author does not address the case against any such change in Indian governance -- namely, it is hard to see how having a state constitution would improve the governance of Bihar or Uttar Pradesh. The other approach -- of having more, smaller states (e.g., the three new created states) -- in the current system is being tried; let us see if that yields better results.

-arun gupta

A well written and well-reasoned article. No system in this world is perfect and we need to learn to improve what we already have (if it has much merit). India has a well established federal system which seems to be working with reasonable success. Anil, you need to inform how and why the Indian federal system should be reformed in the image (if this is what you desire) of the American model. Anil, are you thinking on the lines of a confederation (or a common market) of the Indian states?

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

We should guard against the dangers of comparing India with the US and blindly copying whatever the US does. US states may have their own laws, flag etc, but the history, background and people of US and India are different.

Cries for fiscal autonomy go hand-in-hand with fiscal and other responsibility. There is scope for greater freedom in decision making at the state level, but this has to be clearly defined.

Anil Kapuria!

I agree with the main thrust of your article.

Do you think it is possible?

Do you think, there might be resistance from defenders of Faith, because of the risk of disintegeration of India?

Because once autonomy of some form is demanded, the more advanced state would also like to keep most of the money generated by them and increase their prosperity. This in effect would put the less advanced states at disadvantage, who would like to share the pie. Particularly the states bordering the sea such as Tamil Nadu etc will have no problem in International trade and except force what other option do you think is available for such a scenario in current situation? Moreover why would federal Government provide umbrella of security to such states, if they don`t share their wealth?

The situation in India is very different from USA.

I don`t know about disparity of wealth among different states, but standard of living is even reasonable in so called rural areas and moreover they have come to current status after a lot of bloodshed and pains.

I think these are valid questions which come to mind.

The article makes a number of insightful observations - the rapid improvements taking place in Indian society, that India (like the US) is more of a system than a nation state. The question of provincial autonomy is an interesting one. While there is much to be said for the US model of states rights, I am not sure if autonomy should stop at the state level, and perhaps it is local government autonomy (with basic human rights vigorously protected by the center) that should be stressed. Anyway, successful economic and political developments in India are ultimately good for everyone - not the least being us Pakistanis.

Mohsin Hamid:

The future I dream of for India and Pakistan is in some ways more like our pre-Partition past than like our present. But Partition is itself the key to getting there, and our Partition is not yet done. Imagine what India can be:

a secure and prosperous land where the prosperity is shared across more diversity than exists in one nation anywhere else in the world; a global

leader in thought and personal freedom, in the development of new technologies, in the export of film and music and novels; a great power distinguished from other great powers by its mix of cultures and its colonial experience and therefore more tolerant and just, more strongly

opposed to expansionism and hegemony. I would like to live to see such an India.

I believe in neighbourhoods. I believe a successful India is a good thing for the Indian subcontinent. And I also believe that a successful Indian subcontinent is a good thing for India, because I cannot imagine the land of prosperity and tolerance I hope to see surrounded by impoverished, desperate, nuclear-armed

enemies. No, our future is a shared one, like it or not, and the sooner we begin, as Europe is doing, to combine our strength for our common benefit,the better off all of us will be.

It is not impossible. A free-trading subcontinent where the commute from Lahore to Amritsar took 45 minutes and required no visa was something we

managed in this part of the world at the time my parents were born. Surely we can manage it again.

(Yes, we also had well laid out cities with underground sewage 4,000 years ago. But let us not be pessimists.)

The problem we face in coming closer is that we are not yet done pushing each other away. Pakistan and India are like Siamese twins cut messily from hip to armpit and left connected at the shoulder. The most dangerous part of

the surgery is done, its wounds healed into grotesque scars, but in the decades since then our relationship has been defined by violent conflict over how we tear the piece of flesh that still ties us together.

The time has come to finish the job. Nuclear weapons and self-destructive chauvinism on both sides make it highly likely that any defeat in our stale and senseless competition will become mutual. Kargil and Siachen stand as reminders that the line of control is just that: a front on a battle-map, determined not by law or by principle but by strength. India, with a larger

military, controls a bigger chunk of the province. Pakistan, under the great equalising umbrella of the mushroom cloud, is challenging that control. The Kashmiris themselves have yet to be consulted; people who inhabit battlefields rarely are.

Despite all this, the prevailing attitude on both sides (forgetting, as is the custom, the fact that there is a third side) remains what it has always been: ``To hell with them. We`ll stay our course and take our chances.`` But in the end, any just solution to the conflict over Kashmir must involve asking the people who live there what they want.

In theory, most Pakistanis I know like this idea, thinking (perhaps incorrectly) that Kashmir would choose to come to Pakistan. But there are

other possible outcomes: Kashmir could become independent, or could be partitioned between the two countries based on district majorities, or could become a joint protectorate with open borders on either side. Kashmir could

even, if the Kashmiris so choose, go in its entirety to India.

The particulars of the settlement matter far less than the fact that there is a settlement, that Partition is completed with mutually accepted borders and that the people of Kashmir are spared the violence they endure.

Those who believe that letting the Kashmiris have a say in deciding their own fate opens the door to a stampede of other defections underestimate the strength of Indian democracy and mistake the source of its legitimacy. It seems to me that the vast majority of people who inhabit the states of India are not kept together by the fighting men of some Delhi-based Empire. They have chosen to be part of an enormous experiment, an attempt to create the largest country in the world that is ruled by the will of its citizens. They are, by and large, proud of what that experiment has achieved and optimistic of what it will yet do. It is this consent and shared hope that is India`s

reason for being. Democracy cannot exist without it.

Nor does a compromise over Kashmir undermine India`s secular status. More than a hundred million Muslims live willingly in India, as do many Sikhs, Christians, and others. But the fight over Kashmir strengthens chauvinists on both sides. Those of us who oppose this trend ought to realise that our shared goal stretches across our borders. As do so many things: markets,

rivers, languages, poems, history. Separate nations need not preclude shared dreams.

Let Kashmir complete partition with a choice. For all of us, it is the first step to regaining the entire Indian subcontinent.

(The author grew up in Lahore and currently lives in New York. He`s recently written a novel called Mothsmoke)

Did you say at the end ``angry investor``?

AHAHAHA hey who is not tonight!

Re: Mr. Kapuria

An interesting article. I do share your concerns about the need for economic growth. However, I would like to point out some of the contradictions in your article.

I agree that states should have the right to formulate their own laws to promote economic growth. But it is not true that states in India don`t have this right. In fact, in your example of Punjab and TN, the state legislatures are using their independence to provide free electricity and water. If you remove the checks on their budget all states will start accumulating huge debts (like african nations). What we really need to do is to reduce central government deficit ALSO.

Absolute state control on laws or something like the US will lead to a lot of duplicate procedures and grey areas. Such a system exists in the US for historical reasons but this is not the cause of the economic success of the US. Rather it is a drag on their economy and pace of social reform. Imagine the delays in the legal system of India, already pathetically slow, if you have a scenario where state supreme courts and federal supreme courts start debating who has jurisdiction on a certain issue as the current battle between the state of Alabama and the federal government on the issue of discrimination on the basis of physical diability.

You bemoan lack of interstate trade in India and the bureaucratic hurdles in the path of this. Indeed it is the right of states in India to impose taxes like octroi which is the cause of the hassles. Removal of octroi and other restrictions on inter state trade (which served imperial purposes in British times- and national purposes in the princely states- and are not inventions of independent India) will have to be achieved by the central government. This would reduce the power of the states on taxation not increase it.

There is no state sales tax/ state income tax in India and we should be thankful for this. Though collection of both state and federal taxes will perhaps improve if state taxes were allowed. Taxation will not decrease but increase with such autonomy- which will probably not be bad viz. western Europe. I am not arguing against autonomy on this issue but just pointing out that the result may not be what you are expecting.

Article 356 certainly needs to be used less frequently or modified to ensure less usage. But I disagree that there are less checks on the Indian government. The impeachment by the senate of the president of the US is a very rare occurance and needs 2/3rd majority in the senate. In contrast, the Indian PM is constantly under the gun of a no-confidence motion which needs just an absolute majority (more than 1/2). The problem in the past has been that the MPs were willing to go along with 356. This has changed with the recent coalitions because the centralized power structure of the Congress-I no longer dominates. A presidential system in India (adopted in the US at the time of their independence as it resembles a monarchy with a strong individual authority) will only make abuse of power more frequent and take us back to the Indira Gandhi era (Nehru should not be accused of her doings). You have to look at other presidential systems in poor nations to see its potential performance in India (something most advocates of this don`t seem to consider). Again it is not the presidential system that is the cause of US prosperity. Japan doesn`t have one and seems to have done ok.

The separation of the judiciary and legislature is better in India than in the US. The judicial appointments do not require approval by the legislature. This is the reason why our judiciary has not been politicized like the US. Imagine a populist president from Bihar in a presidential system, (unlike our current presidents who are more academic type) appointing judges to the Supreme Court, who will ensure that no progressive legislation on gender equity is passed. After all, it is some MPs from Bihar who through their paper snatching and hullabaloo succeeded in delaying the legislation on 1/3rd reservation of parliamentary seats for women.

The current structure of the government is not the problem in India. There is sufficient autonomy in place already. Indeed many consider this to be a failing of the Indian system compared to, say, the Chinese model. But this doesn`t mean that we should get rid of our own system and adopt something which may aggravate existing problems and which doesn`t show any logical reasons to expect improvements, either American or Chinese. There is a lot of progressive legislation that has been enacted through our current system in the past 50 yrs. What is needed is for the public to put pressure on politicians to reduce economy related restrictions and bureaucracy(a legacy of the Raj), improve revenue collection (for this the defaulters shouldn`t be elected in the first place as MPs), improve efficiency in public spending while simultaneously increasing spending, and balancing the budget to reduce inflation. Yes, I believe a lot more needs to be spent if infrastructure is to be improved. And this is possible if a larger fraction of our population than the current 0.7% pays taxes. In fact, I believe we can simultaneously cut taxes, increase revenue by improving collection, increase spending substantially, and also balance the budget. Such a thing is unthinkable in developed economies.

Which brings me to my pet suggestion. That is an increase in the size of the judiciary. Mind you, I am not calling for any qualitative or structural reforms. Merely, increasing the size of the judiciary, by forcing our MPs to allocate more money, will reduce backlog and re-establish the faith of the populace in the judicial process. Again, criminals shouldn`t be elected by us for this to happen. If this is done the public might even discover that they already have pretty decent laws. This scenario will involve increasing the current judiciary by atleast 5 times.

Changing the system to introduce the confirmation of judges by the parliament is a nighmarish scenario in the Indian case. With the current power of only allocating resources, politicians have succeded in emaciating the judiciary. Imagine what they will do if they have the power to actually influence the quality of judges.

An improved judiciary will put criminals behind bars and not in legislative assemblies, enable quick settlement of business/agricultural disputes and reduce misuse of power by the executive branches (like the police). The law abiding majority will gain confidence and start improving the economy through entrepreneurship. They won`t have to operate from within modest buildings like the diamond industry or software but will have the confidence to actually invest in traditional industries in a large way.

All this talk of changing the system of government is just hogwash. What really needs to be done is to improve the way it operates. Which is mainly in the hands of the electorate. And the responsibility for providing alternatives to the current crop of politicians lies with the middle class. The uneducated poor can`t do it and the established rich won`t. And when we have elected a sincere crop of politicans they can make the relatively minor corrections ie. ordinary legislation not constitutional amendments to achieve rapid economic growth. Current levels of autonomy will do just fine.

Ashish

Yes, that is the next frontier....no doubt. We were right to sustain a more centralized state for the first fifty years. Now, we need to move into ``Phase II`` of our national development. We need to be cautious and circumspect--heck, changing the entire governance structure in a country like India is no mean task--but the direction towards greater autonomy should be clear.

Let each of the great myriad cultures, languages, traditions, and economies making the magnificent mosaic of India flourish locally. That is the dream of India we should all work towards. Nationally we have little to fear.

Re: Anil

A really thought provoking article!

In the case of India, I would have to caution you! Just as in Pakistan, the colonial system of goverance is quite strong in India and a greater sense of autonomy might be, in the present sense, problematic for the Indian Union.

You have mentioned the United States as an example, but the difference between the United States and India is in the levels of education and the awareness of personal rights.

Are the Indians aware of the fact that with autonomy comes a greater sense of obligation, but sadly, most of the Indian states are heavily dependent on the Indian government. Can they exist without the government`s indulgence?

Too much autonomy amounts to anarchy unless it is correctly balanced in a moderate sense without tilting to either extermes!

Ciao!