Generally political leanings are classified as lying somewhere on the continuous spectrum between left and right. An accurate description of right and left is actually two dimensional, with both economic and social aspects. The Congress Party, under the Nehru Gandhi family leadership, which has governed India for most of the past 66 years since independence, has always been of left of center orientation in both economic and social terms. In the 1920s, Nehru, later to be the first prime-minister of India, visited the Soviet Union and became an avid admirer of soviet style Marxism. It took an explicit threat of expulsion from congress by Gandhi himself to persuade him to go easy on communism. After independence, with the early death of both Gandhi and Patel, Nehru got a free hand and started turning India into a socialist state, famous for what was derisively called the "Hindu rate of Growth". His daughter, grandson and grand daughter-in-law have in turn deepened the socialist mooring of the country. Indira Gandhi even went to the extent of amending Indian Constitution to insert "socialism" into its preamble. On the social side too, the Nehru-Gandhi family have followed a philosophy of multiculturalism, which implies accepting and indirectly strengthening sub-national identities within the society by promoting differentiated citizenship i.e. application of different laws and privileges to different subnationalities. The only exception in this legacy is prime ministerial term of P.V. Narsimha Rao, which can be considered an aberration, since it was the only congress government with no overt or covert control of the first family. The other Indian regional and caste based political outfits can also be broadly classified to occupy similar ideological territory. The right on the other hand always has had a very minimal representation in Indian polity, C Rajgopalachari's (Rajaji) Swatantra party being the only exception. Though the Swatantra (Freedom) party even in it's heyday had limited success in electoral politics having at the peak only 44 legislators in Lok Sabha of 1968-71, it came to constitute the primary opposition to Congress during this period.
Past two decades have seen the slow but steady rise of BJP in electoral politics, and it has now come to occupy the primary right-wing space in India, and is destined to act as a challenge not only to the Congress, but also to all other regional and special issue parties (like AAP) which are distinctly leftist in orientation. The social right, which essentially constitutes belief in social conservativeness and preservation of traditional cultural values, coupled with promotion of distinctive Indian nationhood has always been represented by the BJP since inception. On the economic front however, in spite of positive reformist credentials of NDA 1, BJP has never been openly committed to capitalism. Even in NDA 1 the Swadeshi Jagran Manch, the economic affiliate of the Sangh Parivar, raised a strong dissenting voice and fought to temper the reformist and free-market agenda of the Government. The rise of Narendra Modi for the first time puts the BJP unequivocally into the economically and socially rightist camp, and also for the first time provides India with a viable socially-conservative and economically-liberal alternative. Narendra Modi's credentials towards economic right is unambiguously displayed no only in the economic vision laid down in his speeches but also in his record in Gujarat.
Free market capitalism is the only economic philosophy which has been empirically proven time and again to succeed in improving the economic well-being and quality of life of pre-industrial societies like India. As I have argued in one of my previous post on AAP, such an orientation is even more important for the poorer sections of society than the middle classes. Since spread of education is still limited in India in both quality and coverage, large scale investment in manufacturing and other low-skill labor intensive industry is the only sustainable way to create ample number of jobs and eradicate poverty. There is a broad consensus on this in most academic and policy research circles now, with minor variations in thrust and priority. There are of course is a pro-redistribution camp which pay lip-service to economic liberalism, and lends some confusion to the debate. This is best typified by the spat between the Columbia professors Panagariya/ Bhagwati on one hand and Amartya Sen/Dreze on other. The later pair however have little credibility now, having been contributors to Sonia's NAC over past ten years and hence indirectly responsible for the current economic mess. Panagariya/Bhagwati have argued growth vs redistribution argument very well in a series of books like India: The Emerging Giant and Why Growth Matters. Since the economic side of argument is well understood, let me move on to the social aspect of right.
India is an old civilization but a new republic. It is also on path to evolving into as modern and developed nation. For this it is imperative that people evolve a common sense of identity. This shared identity can only be based on something I like to call Indic culture. Despite the diversity, all Indians share a commonality of culture, ultimately derived from a long and shared history. This shared mythology, philosophy, language, values and culture provide a substratum on which such a common identity can be built. Though role of religion is often overstated by alarmists in this context, religious exclusivity of identities is not a feature of India traditions from ancient times, in a fashion very similar to other east asian cultures like Japan and China. Even the term hindutva, though considered as sectarian by some, is essentially defined by the supreme court judgement as all ideas, thoughts, philosophy and cultural habits that have evolved in the subcontinent. In olden days, besides the Dharmic faiths like Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, Indian Muslims were also labelled as Hindus. So the debate here essentially more about nomenclature and semantics than anything else.
Free market capitalism is the only economic philosophy which has been empirically proven time and again to succeed in improving the economic well-being and quality of life of pre-industrial societies like India. As I have argued in one of my previous post on AAP, such an orientation is even more important for the poorer sections of society than the middle classes. Since spread of education is still limited in India in both quality and coverage, large scale investment in manufacturing and other low-skill labor intensive industry is the only sustainable way to create ample number of jobs and eradicate poverty. There is a broad consensus on this in most academic and policy research circles now, with minor variations in thrust and priority. There are of course is a pro-redistribution camp which pay lip-service to economic liberalism, and lends some confusion to the debate. This is best typified by the spat between the Columbia professors Panagariya/ Bhagwati on one hand and Amartya Sen/Dreze on other. The later pair however have little credibility now, having been contributors to Sonia's NAC over past ten years and hence indirectly responsible for the current economic mess. Panagariya/Bhagwati have argued growth vs redistribution argument very well in a series of books like India: The Emerging Giant and Why Growth Matters. Since the economic side of argument is well understood, let me move on to the social aspect of right.
India is an old civilization but a new republic. It is also on path to evolving into as modern and developed nation. For this it is imperative that people evolve a common sense of identity. This shared identity can only be based on something I like to call Indic culture. Despite the diversity, all Indians share a commonality of culture, ultimately derived from a long and shared history. This shared mythology, philosophy, language, values and culture provide a substratum on which such a common identity can be built. Though role of religion is often overstated by alarmists in this context, religious exclusivity of identities is not a feature of India traditions from ancient times, in a fashion very similar to other east asian cultures like Japan and China. Even the term hindutva, though considered as sectarian by some, is essentially defined by the supreme court judgement as all ideas, thoughts, philosophy and cultural habits that have evolved in the subcontinent. In olden days, besides the Dharmic faiths like Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, Indian Muslims were also labelled as Hindus. So the debate here essentially more about nomenclature and semantics than anything else.
As for the other option of Liberalism and Socialism, I have come to observe that Indian left is in practice both intellectually dishonest and at continued dissonance with truth. Its continual overcompensation to the possibility of bias towards traditional opinion, has resulted it in travelling in direction opposite even in respect to its own ideals. Even in its unsullied form, liberalism is based on a belief in universal values of humanism, and in considers the primacy of individual before the community. But like all idealism it doesn't take enough consideration of the deep need of people to identify with and belong to groups and communities. Since man is not all logic, but emotion as well, social structures need to utilize the positive aspects of group identities to provide the binding force and emotional energy required for collaborative effort. Patriotism is one of the expressions of such an identity, and enables man to altruistically collaborate with his fellow man and work towards common good. Such a common identification also reduces possibility of conflict.
Both centripetal for right and centrifugal forces of left exist in all countries. Though truth is usually not at extremities, and both have elements of truth and need to be in balance for continued evolution, my argument is that India at this moment needs a rightward turn. This would reduce conflict and focus energies towards modernizing and transforming it into a prosperous and developed nation. On the other hand, to keep denying Indic Civilization, and continue on the path of multiculturalism and differentiated citizenship as the primary philosophy is to accentuate differences and dissipate the energy of people in continued conflict and competition. This kind of differentiated citizenship is also and incentive for social groups to stay fixed in orthodoxy, since benefits and privilege get tied to identities and harden them. Though with time and rising prosperity the hold of religion and community is going to loosen, and individuality is likely to increase, at this moment it is imperative that Indians develop shared value systems. And though this end may not always be possible and should never be forced, it is goal worthy of pursuit.
