On August 15, 2024, India celebrated 77 years of freedom from British Rule, as `Independence Day’. In 1947 the sovereign power went from British hands to essentially the propertied section of the population of the vast country, which simultaneously saw a bloody partition, with entire regions and half of Punjab and Bengal going to a separate country named Pakistan which celebrated its independence a day earlier.
It is important to note that the Constitution of India which was adopted in 1950 remained primarily based on the British era Government of India Act, and that all the colonial institutions, including the police and judiciary etc. remained intact, and the system of government was modelled along the lines of the British Westminster system. Although symbolically the power went into the hands of the people, in practice it remained in the hands of a select few. The multi-party system facilitated keeping the people out of power. The Indian Independence Act of the British Parliament handed over executive power to the Congress Party in 1947.
As in Britain, a bicameral system of legislature came into existence at the Centre and a federal structure at the state levels, with the supreme power resting in the hands of the Cabinet led by the Prime Minister, with the President as a nominal Head of State. The political system of parliamentary democracy, where there are treasury benches and opposition benches, safeguarded and perpetuated the rule of the property-owning classes. Constitutional experts have commented on and even praised the `continuity’ and the `perfection’ of the system.
During the course of these 77 years India claims to have become a big power, battling for a place in the sun among the big powers, and frequently campaigning for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council to announce it has arrived. India boasts of a large number of billionaires, Indian companies have come to become multinational corporations, Indian labour competes in international markets and Indian people are spread across the globe.
It is worth recalling that soon after independence, India embarked on something known as the
`socialistic pattern of development’ based on the so-called ‘Bombay Plan’[i]. This saw the establishing of a `mixed-economy’ or a command-economy. Heavy industries were set up across the length and breadth of the country to provide basic infrastructure. The `Green Revolution’ was launched to provide food security to the people. Vast sections of the country were interlinked by roads, highways, railways, etc. Freight as well as passenger travel became much easier for the movement of raw materials, goods and labour.
Private industry flourished, and agriculture too came under the rubric of capitalist development. Measures were taken by the government from time to time to make it appear as if there was some kind of socialism as in, e.g., the nationalisation of banks and oil companies. And yet the economy remained primarily capitalist. The wealth and power of the big corporate groups grew with each passing year.
Matters came to a head during the 1980s and in 1990s when different waves of `reform’ were launched, under the banner of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation. These led to the growth of the economy in a very lopsided manner, with vast riches accruing at one pole, and poverty at the other. India has seen a rise of billionaires; yet nearly 80.48 crore persons today depend on rations from the Prime Minister’s scheme PMGKAY! There is vast unemployment in all sectors, rampant inflation, terrible social and living conditions. It is therefore an appropriate time to take an audit of how this state of affairs has come to be.
A cursory look at the annual budget and its passage shows that there is no representation of the will of the people in these decisions. An examination of the political process shows that political parties pay lip service to the people, but are actually dependent on the very rich, the propertied classes.
People of a constituency have no power to decide who may or may not stand in the elections to become their ‘representative’. Candidates are chosen by the political parties only. Once the elections are over, there is no obligation for those elected by the masses to actually fight for the interests of those who elected them. On the contrary, they are obliged to follow the writ or whip of their parties which gave them a chance to contest the elections. The parties in turn, are under pressure from the very rich, those who bankrolled their elections, to enact laws and implement policies which serve their interests, their insatiable greed. This should explain why the wealth of these sections has grown several-fold in the last 77 years, while the lot of the toiling people has stagnated or worsened. The masses of people have no say in any decisions. The only power that the people have is that of pressing a button once every few years. Thus, people are totally disempowered politically.
It is clear that none of the problems of the Indian people have been solved in these 77 years. It is therefore crucial to ask how to get out of this quandary. The main thing that needs to be addressed is the political and economic empowerment of the people so that they can become masters of their destiny. The empowered people need to use their power and reorient the economy so that it will serve their needs, and not the greed of the monopolies for maximum profits. A broad discussion must take place as to how this can happen in deed, and not just in word.
[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_Plan
by BA and Venkatesh Sundaram
