A.K. Verma

India is robust democracy, but people, especially poor and marginalized, have yet to taste fruits of democracy. After 67 years of freedom, we are struggling to be free from poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, ill-health, lack of good infrastructure, potable-water scarcity, urban-slums and safety and security of people especially women.

India’s new Prime Minister (PM) NarendraModi’s emphasis on ‘less government and more governance’, directions to ministers to keep away family members from personal staff and asking them to declare their assets within two months and severe relations with houses with which they have business interests, zero tolerance for corruption, abolishing empowered/group-of-ministers for faster decision making, encouraging all secretaries to speak to him directly without fear or favour and evolving people-friendly rules and procedures indicate radical shift in politico-administrative culture that has won accolades even from such opposition congressmen as P. Chidambaram and Shashi Tharoor.

In a people-centric governance system, why are people not the real beneficiary? Why various governments have to resort to freebee politics and take wrong routes to benefit people? Who are real beneficiaries, then? The contradiction of our democracy is that it is not benefitting the ‘demos’; it is still hostage to aristocracy or oligarchy, at worst. What is wrong with our democracy?

We could point out two fundamental wrongs; one, structural, two, political cultural. The structural aspect of our polity are sourced from the Constitution and British administrative lineage, and in their present form and character, they show terrible decline and need urgent attention to make them compatible with general ethos of Constitution. But, the focusof this discourse is on the second wrong – the political culture – that had a devastating bearing on the ‘structural’.

Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verbaexplained political culture as consisting of people’s shared or learned beliefs, attitudes and values about political system, their roles within that system, and how they see their political world. In astudy in 1965 Political Culture and Political Development, edited by Lucian W. Pye and Sidney Verba, Pye remarked that "in no society is there a single uniform political culture and in all polities there is a fundamental distinction between the culture of the rulers ... and that of the masses." Verbacautioned about the existence of "sub-cultures" within a political systemcorresponding tosub-groupswithin the society whose fundamental assumptions about politics differ from the assumptions predominant in that society." In spite of that, one contributor, Myron Weiner was highly optimistic in his assessment of democratic prospects in India. After half-a-century, the time has come to redeem that optimism.

Because of its role in freedom struggle and its three decades dominance at national governance (1947-77), the beliefs, attitudes and values of Congress were, by and large, deemed to be predominant assumptions of mainstream Indian society. Hence, any digression from those values were considered to be against Indian society and nation. That is in spite of the fact that Congress as a national movement was fundamentally different from Congress as a political party. Nehru and Patel did not agree to Gandhi’s suggestion to disband the Congress and convert it into a loksewaksangh. Gandhi was assassinated the same day when he was to announce disbandment of Congress and the charge for assassination was imputed to one ‘mad man’ of the RSS. Given peoples’ high reverence for Nehru, they generally believed that charge, and academia never went for seriously researching that unfortunate incident. Consequently, any organization connected to the RSS – that included the Jan Sangh and its present variant BJP–acquired a villains image in Indian psyche and suffered politically.

The BJP led national governments could be formed only half-a-century after independence in 1998, 1999 and May 2014. The first two governments were formed under leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee; the present one is formed under Prime Ministership of Shri NarendraModi.Modi’s government differs from earlier ones: it has full mandate of the people, and PM Modi has a model of governance in Gujarat to his credit that he implemented for 13 long years. That earned fame all over for different political and administrative culture. This is in spite of the fact that Mr. Modi had been criticized, even demonized, by political parties, NGOs, civil service organisations, human right groups, media etc. for his alleged involvement in Gujrat riots – a charge that does not stand intelligence or even judicial scrutiny. Contrary to that, the courts have lauded Gujrat government’s handling of riots during those three fateful days 28 Feb - 2 March 2002 when the Army was fully in command of situation in Gujarat. Andy Marinos well researched recent book ‘NarendraModi: A Political Biography’ clearly unfolds how even a top state administrator can be painted the wrong way through half-baked stories and disinformation campaigns.

Mr. Modi’s stint as PM reminds one of Plato’s classic ‘The Republic’ in which Plato admonished that a ruler should not keep family nor personal wealth; both work as deviants and drive to corruption. Isn’t it surprising that in his 13 long years as CM of Gujarat, Modineither kept family nor amassed wealth? He had not been accused of any corruption, nepotism, incompetence or inefficiency charges too. The way he has conducted himself since becoming PM, gives different picture of Modi than what we were made to believe so far provoking Tharoor to depict him as “Modi 2”. One does not know if it is “Modi 2” or a “Congress perception 2”. But, certainly, here is a man the country needed; simple, humble, no-nonsense kind, dedicated to work, capable of a team building and team-work, but most importantly, with ideas and visionwith inclusive and pro-poor thrust. What else Indian democracy needed to become one of the best in the world? One is reminded of Daniel J. Elazar, who identified four types of political culture - individualist, statist, traditionalist and civic republican; the last one looks at politics as a search for good society, and government as a positive instrument to promote general welfare with high political participation and little corruption that Modi seems to be emulating. When he took over as PM, there were fears that he may promote an amalgamation of ‘statist’ and ‘traditionalist’political cultures; but as the days pass by, he seem to be proving all his critics wrong. That’s a good omen for our democratic polity!