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Degrees of Democracy: Some Comparative Lessons from India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Patrick Heller
Patrick Heller
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Sociology at Brown University.
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Abstract

This article draws on the case of India to address the question of democratization by exploring the dynamic interplay of the formal, effective, and substantive dimensions of democracy. Fifty-three years of almost uninterrupted democratic rule in India have done little to reduce the political, social, and economic marginalization of India's popular classes. Within India the state of Kerala stands out as an exception. Democratic institutions have effectively managed social conflict and have also helped secure substantive gains for subordinate classes. Kerala's departure from the national trajectory is located in historical patterns of social mobilization that coalesced around lower-class interests and produced forms of state-society engagement conducive to democratic deepening. Contrary to much of the transition literature, this case suggests that high levels of mobilization and redistributive demands have democracy-enhancing effects.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , July 2000 , pp. 484 - 519
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 2000

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References

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27 One could simply point to border areas—the Northeast region, Kashmir, and Punjab—where separatist struggles have led to the suspension of basic democratic rights as the extreme cases of undemocratic practice. These, however, are in effect areas where the legitimacy of the nation-state itself is contested. It is variation within the boundaries of the consolidated and legitimated Indian nation-state that are of concern here.

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53 The Communist Party of India (CPI) was unified until 1965 when it split into the CPI and the CPI(M), or as it is more simply known the CPM. The CPM has emerged as the dominant Communist Party in both West Bengal and Kerala.

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56 Varshney (fn. 48) found that out of seventeen states, Kerala ranked the fourth lowest in the number of per capita deaths in urban communal riots (manuscript p. 112); this is based on a large-N data set on Hindu-Muslim violence—1950–95—jointly produced with Steve Wilkinson. Of the three states ranking below Kerala, the Punjab has been the site of sustained rural violence and neither Haryana nor Tamil Nadu has a sizable Muslim population.

57 In Kerala's 1995 local government elections, the BJP captured only 3 out of 1,200 panchayats, and only 1 out of 26 municipalities. Kerala remains the only major state in India in which the BJP has never secured a seat in the national parliament.

58 See Drèze and Sen (fn. 9, 1995).

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79 Kohli (fn. 7, 1990), chap. 10.

80 In contrast, the CPM in West Bengal, having enjoyed the fruits and resources of state power for twenty-three years, has become far more bureaucratic and clientelistic. See Echeverri-Gent, John, “Public Participation and Poverty Alleviation: The Experience of Reform Communists in India's West Bengal,” World Development 29 (October 1992).Google Scholar

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88 Heller (fn. 48, 1999).

89 A recent World Bank study found that from 1957–58 to 1990–91 Kerala experienced the most rapid decline in poverty of any major state, including the Punjab and Haryana, India's capitalist growth success stories. Guarav Datt and Martin Ravallion, “Why Have Some Indian States Done Better Than Others at Reducing Poverty?” Policy Research Working Paper no. 1594 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1996).

90 Between 1986–87 and 1993–94 the factory sector grew at an annual average of 9.8 percent, well above the national average of 5.6 percent, and agriculture grew at 5.5 percent. A recent study on new investments in Kerala found a “tremendous increase” since 1991–92. Mani, Sunil, “Economic Liberal isation and Kerala's Industrial Sector: An Assessment of Investment Opportunities,” Economic and Political Weekly (August 24–31, 1996), 2326.Google Scholar

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99 Minkoff provides an excellent critique of the overemphasis of the civil society literature on community-based origins of civic behavior and the resulting neglect of the role that more aggregated forms of association that transcend local community (social movements, advocacy groups) can play in nurturing civic identities. Minkoff, Debra, “Producing Social Capital: National Social Movements and Civil Soceity,” American Behavioral Scientist 40, no. 5 (1997).Google Scholar

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102 See Adler and Webster (fn. 12).