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From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Fri Jan 28 2011 - 02:46:32 EST
India’s Elites in Crisis Sanjeev
Sanyal<http://www.project-syndicate.org/contributor/3935>
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NEW DELHI – For a country with 1.2 billion people, India is ruled by a
surprisingly small elite, which runs everything from the government to large
companies and even sports bodies. But a series of scandals, some involving
billions of dollars, has now seriously undermined that elite’s standing in
the eyes of the Indian public.
Almost anyone in a position of power in India, including well-known print
and television journalists, is now viewed with suspicion. This is occurring
at a time when economic growth is pulling a young and upwardly mobile
population into the urban middle class. This new middle class is no longer
constrained by the patronage systems of the village, but it also does not
enjoy the cozy relationship that links the old middle class with the elite.
Could this crisis of the elite trigger India’s own Tiananmen Square moment?
Except in totalitarian regimes, a country’s elite depends on a degree of
popular acceptance, which is mostly derived from the belief that the elite
is broadly “fair” in its dealings. Following the recent series of scandals,
the average Indian does not believe this anymore.
Of course, doubts about the ruling elite are not unique to India. Almost all
countries undergoing a shift from a pre-industrial equilibrium based on
patronage to one based on modern institutions and the rule of law have faced
such crises of legitimacy.
Until the early nineteenth century, for example, British politics was
extraordinarily corrupt. The old aristocracy not only dominated the House of
Lords, but also used its influence to get relatives, friends, and family
retainers elected to the House of Commons by exploiting a key institutional
weakness – the existence of “rotten boroughs” that could be bought and sold.
The Duke of Newcastle alone is said to have controlled seven such boroughs,
each with two representatives. Meanwhile, large and populous industrial
cities like Birmingham and Manchester were barely represented. In 1819, a
crowd of 60,000 gathered in Manchester to demand reform, but were charged by
the cavalry. Fifteen people were killed and many more injured in what is
remembered as the Peterloo Massacre.
Given the recent memory of the violent French Revolution, the British elite
reluctantly agreed to democratizing reforms. Ultimately, the Reform Act of
1832 abolished the rotten boroughs and extended the franchise to the new
middle class (the working class and women would have to wait).
The United States, too, went though a period of robber-baron
industrialization in the 1870’s and 1880’s. The greed and corruption of that
era were satirized in 1873 by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their
book *The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today*. The period ended with the depression
of 1893-96, and was followed by the major political reforms of the
Progressive Era.
For Britain and the US, the transition in the nature of the governing elite
was relatively smooth. But there are many examples where such change was
sudden and violent – the French and Russian Revolutions, for example. In
Germany, the old Prussian elite successfully managed the country’s
industrialization in the late nineteenth century, but was discredited by
defeat in World War I. Nazism filled the ensuing vacuum, and a new
equilibrium would be established only after World War II.
Similar shifts have been witnessed in Asia. Japan saw two shifts – the Meiji
Restoration of 1868 and the period after World War II. South Korea was ruled
by generals until widespread student protests led to a democratic transition
in 1987. (Many of the country’s top businessmen faced prosecution in
subsequent years.) Indonesia experienced its shift more recently, in 1998.
When China confronted this moment during the Tiananmen Square protests of
1989, the Communist state repressed the students with an iron fist, but has
since maintained a single-minded focus on economic growth. Corruption
remains a major problem, but the authorities take care to punish the worst
excesses in a highly visible way. Still, as the recent controversy over the
Nobel Peace Prize demonstrated, the government remains nervous about any
dissent that challenges the legitimacy of the ruling elite.
Even adjusted for purchasing power, India’s middle class today probably
totals no more than 70 million (far smaller than is generally assumed). But,
in the coming decade, today’s established middle class will be swamped by
newcomers working their way up from the country’s slums, small towns, and
villages.
One can see them everywhere – learning English in “coaching centers,”
working anonymously in the new malls and call centers, or suddenly famous as
sports stars. Never before has India experienced such social mobility. So
far, this new group has been too busy climbing the income ladder to express
their resentment at the excesses of the elite, but one can feel a growing
sense of anger among its members.
It is impossible to predict when the shift will happen or what form it will
take. Given India’s democratic traditions, it is likely that the change will
be peaceful. One possibility is that it will take place province by province
– the previously ungovernable state of Bihar being a prime example.
But we might also see an unpredictable turn, with a new political leader or
movement suddenly capturing the popular imagination and sweeping aside the
old arrangements. As we know from Nazi Germany and other cases, such
movements do not always lead to a happy outcome.
Perhaps India’s existing elite will learn from history, purge itself, and
then open itself up to new talent. Many investigations have been ordered
into the current corruption scandals. Over the course of this year, Indians
will find out if such efforts are serious and whether they will lead to
reform – or merely to deeper crisis.
*Sanjeev Sanyal is the author of The Indian Renaissance: India’s Rise after
a Thousand Years of Decline.*
*Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2011.
www.project-syndicate.org*
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