The Pioneer an Indian Daily last week carried a news quoting a poll commissioned by Hindustan TVs Eyewitness. It said that a majority of 1700 urban Indians interviewed favored dictatorship for the country “if it is to progress.” The percentage of these who supported dictatorship was as high as 70 in Bombay and Madras In Delhi this figure was 40%. Overall an average $8% of the sample population backed the dictatorship idea. The outcome of the opinion poll is interesting but not surprising. No details of the Sample population are available but it is well known that middle and upper middle sections mostly drawn from Indias upper castes live in major cities of the country. They have a high degree of literacy. They contribute handsomely to the formation of Indias establishment -The bureaucracy the police and army top brass the judiciary the media and the like. The political opinion of these sections has an important bearing on the countrys polity. Unlike We British and U.S. middle classes the Indian urban middle class do not have heart in democracy. It will support democracy so long as it is serves the economic ends of this Class. For the Indian elite democracy is not a normal way of life. It is a means to an end the end being the preservation of the traditional hold of this class on the cake the country produces. On the other hind it is the Indian poor the Dalits the backward classes etc who value democracy even if that means casting votes once after five years. What seems to Have driven the urban elite in India to favor dictatorship at this Stage is the phenomenal political change in the country brought about by the recent Assembly elections. For the first time India’s Dalits backward castes and minorities joined hands against the upper castes in U.P. the biggest state to form a government. The Upper castes may all be thinking of changing the rules of the game. Another important factor that conclusively influenced the Indian Hindu upper castes into switching over to dictatorship is the emergence of Pakistan as an indestructible factor in south-east Asia. Indian Hindu in realty never reconciled himself to the resistance of Pakistan since 1947. The break-up of Pakistan in 1971 was a high water mark for the Hindu who catapulted Mrs. Indira Gandhi on account of her role as the mid-wife of Bangladesh as Hindu deity worth worshipping. But Bhuttos Islamic bomb” brought about a basic change in equations on the sub-continent. Rather than being at the receiving end. Pakistan because aggressive in the years to come so much so that it was dubbed as an reporter of revolution inside India in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. A self-assured Pakistan now could “afford the Inseucy of democracy. But the corresponding decline of that amount of self-assurance in the Indian Hindu is repeatedly weakening democracy in India.

The Indian opinion poll merely reflects the inner thoughts of the upper caste Hindu who is the backbone of the Indian state. The poll should serve as a slap on the face of those who are not tired of calling India the “biggest democracy” in the world The Indian state has been showing its real face in Kashmir Punjab Assam and other eastern regions where the active presence of the army is the rule rather than an exception. Even formal elections have been abandoned in Kashmir In Punjab the Indian police chief K.P.S Gill calls the shots and unabashedly tells the world that Akalis could not be permitted to operate with their usual parliamentary tactics of peaceful protest sit-ins. Gills own statements expose the claim of the restoration of democracy in Punjab and his brand of normally. “That being so India in certain regions already has switched over to dictatorship notwithstanding the loud thinking of the urban Indian to make the rest of the country follow suit.

Any talk of liberalization in this scenario sounds hollow. A massive attack on finance minister Manmohan Singh early this week was not on account of his responsibility in the scam It was actually an attack on whatever little relaxation of controls on the economy was allowed in the recent past. A vast section of Indias big business does not want any degree of liberalization. An economic liberalization without political liberalization is unthinkable. A polity with dictatorship as its kernel cannot permit a liberal economy. That really is the predicament of the Indian society and the Indian state. The opinion poll preferred to above merely unmasks the Indian reality.

Article extracted from this publication >> January 7, 1994