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A Wall Stree Journal article about India, that appeard on July 20th, 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703724104575378590961975082.html#printMode
India's Gandhi God-Kings
Opaque family rule is no way to run a political party, let alone a major
economy and aspiring great power.
By SADANAND DHUME
To make sense of the latest storm in the tea cup of Indian politics, you need
to wrap your mind around a curious epithet: intellectual arrogance. That, says
Digvijay Singh, a senior leader of the ruling Congress Party, is the problem
with Home Minister P. Chidambaram, the man tasked with perhaps the toughest job
in Indian public life—keeping its 1.1 billion citizens safe.
Mr. Singh's broadside against his party colleague, launched in an op-ed in
April and repeated Saturday in a television interview, comes against the
backdrop of a deepening insurgency by Maoist rebels in eastern and central
India that has claimed nearly 800 lives this year. By suggesting that Mr.
Chidambaram pays too much attention to security, and not enough to public
welfare, Mr. Singh has triggered a flurry of speculation about government
policy on what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (no relation) has called the
country's "most serious security problem."
Has the home minister lost the confidence of his party's leadership? Will the
current law-and-order-led approach to the insurgency be replaced by a "hearts
and minds" alternative? Should the government view Maoists primarily as rabid
ideologues and brutal killers, or as gentle tribals forced to take up arms to
defend their way of life?
Officially, and incredibly, the Congress Party denies a rift between Digvijay
Singh and Mr. Chidambaram. And indeed no rational person, least of all the home
minister, denies that a successful anti-Maoist strategy will wield the carrot
of development as much as the stick of law enforcement.
Nonetheless, the incident reveals a strange contradiction at the heart of
Indian democracy. Though the country holds regular elections and boasts a free
press, deciphering its politics can require the skills of a Soviet-era
Kremlinologist. The Indian equivalent of interpreting the seating arrangement
at a Soviet May Day parade: figuring out a politician's closeness to Congress
President Sonia Gandhi or her son, General-Secretary Rahul Gandhi.
Exhibit A in this drama is Mr. Singh, a party general secretary and a former
chief minister of the Hindi-heartland state of Madhya Pradesh. One day he
chides the home minister on television and faults the government's anti-Maoist
strategy. The next day he publicly second guesses the government account of a
controversial 2008 police encounter with Islamist terrorists in Delhi.
Instead of suspending Mr. Singh, or stripping him of responsibilities, the
party treats his outbursts as business as usual. The result is rampant
speculation that the Gandhis have given Mr. Singh their tacit approval.
If Congress were more like its counterparts in mature parliamentary
democracies—say Britain or Australia—it would not tolerate this public
confusion over vital matters of national security. But unlike the Conservatives
and Labour in Britain, or for that matter the Republicans and Democrats in
America, Congress is defined less by adherence to a coherent ideology than by
fealty to a single family.
The party may reject the Hindu-first philosophy of the BJP and the narrow
linguistic and caste-based agendas of smaller parties, but beyond that it's
utterly amorphous, a motley crew of economically savvy technocrats, clapped-out
socialists, family retainers and regional satraps. In this hothouse of intrigue
and sycophancy, careers can hinge on the ability to change tack according to
which way the Gandhis' views are seen to be blowing.
Meanwhile, with their handpicked prime minister and his cabinet taking care of
day-to-day governance, the Gandhis themselves tend to float above the fray in
the manner of medieval god-kings, promoting a government program here or an
idealistic piece of legislation there. Rahul Gandhi is associated with a
program that guarantees the rural poor 100 days of paid work every year. His
mother has championed, among other things, quotas for women in parliament and
subsidized food for the poor.
Beyond this apparent sense of noblesse oblige toward the toiling masses, the
Gandhis are probably the most opaque major politicians in the democratic world.
They rarely speak to the media, and when they do it's not to critics. Their
views on the pace of economic liberalization, the nature of the Maoist threat,
or the roots of Islamist terrorism must be gleaned from a scrap of information
here or a stray rumor there, say a book on counterinsurgency recommended by Mr.
Gandhi to the prime minister, or his mother's packing an influential advisory
council with assorted tax-and-spend do-gooders.
Most Indians haven't the faintest idea about whether the Gandhis see the rise
of China as more of a threat or an opportunity. Or whether they think American
influence in Asia is in India's interest or not. Or if, for them, the trouble
with India's economy is too much capitalism or too little reform.
For the family, this opacity clearly has benefits. It keeps them above the fray
of petty politics. It allows them to exercise power without responsibility. It
gives them the flexibility to change political course on a dime.
But smart politics doesn't always generate good policy. Fostering a culture of
opacity and public second-guessing about sensitive policy matters is no way to
lead a major economy and an aspirant for great power status.
Mr. Dhume, a columnist for WSJ.com, is writing a book on the new Indian middle
class.
