NATURE OF THE STATE IN INDIA: LIBERAL, MARXIST AND GANDHIAN
‘State’ is the most commonly used term in politics. Up to the first half of twentieth century, political science was concerned with the study of the phenomenon of the state in its varied aspects and relationship, as distinct from family, tribe, and nation and from all private associations and groups. As Garner put it, political science begins and ends with the state’. Gettle, Gilchrist etc. have also been the representatives of such a school of political thought.
Etymologically, a state is organized machinery for the making and carrying out of political decisions and for the enforcement of the laws and rules of a government. According to Garner, ‘the state, as a concept of political science and public law is a community of persons more or less numerous, permanently occupying a definite portion of territory control and possessing an organized government to which the great body, of inhabitants render habitual obedience. According to this definition, population, fixed territory, government and sovereignty are the essential elements of the state. Different from society, government, association and the nations, the state is considered a distinct institution.
The state is a central player in the modern drama of development, and nowhere is it more important than in the development of the third world. Its successes, its failures and its distortions cannot be fully appreciated without a proper understanding of the trajectories of state formation. To understand how states are forward and how they have come to be what they are, we must think historically, about them, and look beyond the formal structures to their social and political specifications.
Modern state may be classified into two broad forms-liberal democratic and totalitarian. While the former stands on the foundation of democracy signifying residence of power in the hands of the people and its utilization by their chosen representatives; the latter is antithetic of the former where political power is in the hands of a group of power hungry politician or a junta of military oligarchs who strive to severe legitimacy of their rule by means of force and fraud’. Another variety popularly known by the name of ‘welfare state’ has emerged. The concept welfare state has been devised to meet the challenge of the totalitarian state.
Various attempts have been made to understand the politics of India. Though there is no rational view on the formation of the state but mainly two approaches interpret the nature of the Indian states. These are liberal and Marxist.
Liberal Approach
The liberal approach stressed on institution and processes as the key to understanding the state and political power. It recognises the need for development and social change. To study the nature of any particular state, it is necessary to analyse the relation between state, power, and social classes and the purpose of the state. The liberal democratic form stands on the foundation of democracy. It sees the state as a democratic state where rule of the people is implemented with freedom of speech and expression, free and periodic elections, a responsible and accountable government, independent judiciary, rule of law etc. Through rule of law it prevents chaos and anarchy in the society which restricts absolute freedom but creates freedom within the law for all citizens. This approach emphasised the primacy and independence of political processes. This is evident from the writings of Rajni Kothari, S. Rudolph and F. Frankel. Liberal scholars have stressed the need of acceptance of the centrality of state as an autonomous actors or relative autonomy, where state has to play a highly Interventionist developmental role. Further rule of one party in India i.e. Congress party’s dominance for nearly four decades had helped to strengthen the political base for the emergence of a strong state. It emerged as Independent from colonial rule under Indian national Congress which transformed itself into a ruling party and acquired the characteristic of an accommodating party.
Political scientists like Rajni Kothari, Norman Palmer and Morris Jones have subscribed to the Liberal modernist perspective. Rajni Kothari commented on Indian model as a society of ‘dominant political centre’ which is characterised by plural identities. He considered the existence of pluralist tolerance and a genius for integration as the important factors for the successful establishment of Democracy in India. Morris Jones focus was on the working of political institutions and processes to understand the nature of state in India. He gave the importance to Democratic institutions in bringing the transformation at different levels. He stressed on the “capability of political institutions in bringing about economic and social change”. (1) It was assumed that “with a liberal democratic constitutional system and universal suffrage, the Indian political system would gradually develop its own processes of democratic decision- making, rational administration, and modern citizenship”. (2) This combination of “democratic ideology, economic development, distributive justice provided a unique opportunity of transforming a traditionally apolitical society in which the state became the central instrument and politics the principal agent of transformation. (3) This shows the optimistic picture of political institutions and democratic processes. The liberal critique of the Indian state can be read in the writings of Rajni Kothari, Atul Kohli, The Rudolphs, Gunnar Myrdal.Gunnar Myrdal criticized the inability of the state to enforce public policies to eradicate poverty or to enforce laws and dubbed the institutional model of the Indian state as “soft state”. According to Myrdal, the Indian state was soft as it had no power to rectify institutions that stood in the way of reform and development. As a result, it could not tackle the institution of caste directly, take measures of effective land reform, eradicate corruption or enforce ideas of development effectively through the people. One consequence of this softness has been the growth of left-wing extremism, which Manmohan Singh called the “gravest internal threat” to the country’s security. Myrdal's 'hard state ' would have been able to tackle Naxalism which has gravely affected the nation. The liberal approach focuses on institutions and processes to understand state and political power in India. The state is considered the central instrument of social progress and principal agent of transformation. According to the Rudolphs, there are two groups characterised in the Indian state, one being the ‘owners of production’ and the other being the ‘labourer’ group. They analysed the state as a mediator between these two conflicting groups, and in doing so, must remain autonomous in order to maintain structural unity of the state. The role of the state would hence be the "third actor". The Rudolphs believe in the Indian state as a weak –strong state. It is strong because of large basic industries, ideology of secularism Democracy, Socialism and mixed economy that has minimized conflicts. It is weak because of caste class conflicts, religious fundamentalism and communalism, rising levels of political mobilization etc.
Marxist Approach
Then there is Marxist approach where political economy is the vital factor. State is the most important vehicle of economic development. It ascribes a partisan role to the state in the ongoing class struggle between the ruling class and the ruled. Marxist would have described the Indian state responsible for constituting a social order which maintains hegemony of capital over labour and seeks to reproduce this relationship. This was the main intellectual counterpoint of western political thought, beginning with Plato and Aristotle. This considered the state essential to the maintenance of order and civilisation. Marxist argued that the state emerged historically along with the division of society into a ruling class that enjoyed leisure and privilege, while the mass of people were limited to make a living and were exploited as slaves and proletarians in the overall evolution of society from the ancient period to the modern one. Later Marx was convinced that the state could be abolished when the proletariat had won the class struggle, something that he believed was inevitable.
Communist party of India describes India as a national bourgeoisie state which has the possibility of moving peacefully towards socialism by following a non-capitalist path of development. The Indian capitalist class is today, after more than five decades of post independence, a class which has expanded and undergone some important changes. At the time of independence itself, there was a big bourgeoisie, which dominated this class as a whole. But the outlook of this big bourgeoisie has undergone a significant change. It was the big bourgeoisie which spelt out the type of capitalist development that was undertaken in India from the 1950s: (a) a class which understood the international situation and its own base in Indian society. It needed the Indian State to accumulate capital and develop capitalism. The State capitalism, which the Indian ruling classes sponsored, played a two-fold role. It enabled the development of capitalism within a constrained framework. A model of capitalist development without a thoroughgoing agrarian revolution, which necessitated a compromise with landlordism and the development of agrarian capitalism from above relying on landlords and the rich peasants. (b) The subordinate position of the Indian bourgeoisie vis a vis world capitalism required the organic link with foreign finance capital and reliance on this imperialist capital to advance the path of capitalist development. (c) Such a capitalist development could have a relative degree of autonomy in a situation where there was the existence of the Soviet Union and a socialist bloc; the bourgeois-landlord classes in India could utilise the conflicts between the two blocs and manoeuvre to strengthen its own position to a limited extent.
Academic Marxist like A.R. Desai called India a capitalist state. (4) A “bourgeoisie constitution” as he named the Indian constitution, argued that initially inclusion of right to property in the constitution was to give the right to income through ownership which resulted in social inequalities. Further Indian Planning based on mixed economy accepted a class structure based on private ownership as the basis for economic development. He said the tilt of mixed economy is towards private sector. On the same lines, C.P. Bhambari has highlighted the conflict within the ruling classes and a relative weakening of the state. Hamza Alvi has argued that India as a post-colonial state had relative economy in mediating the competing interests of the ruling classes. There exist some specific conditions which helped the state to play an autonomous role in post-colonial states. He contends that there is no classbased politics in India and there are multi- class parties like Congress, the weakness of indigenous propertied class allows the Indian state a great measure of relative autonomy.
On the same lines another scholar Partha Chatterjee says that there has been a coalition of dominant classes since independence. The power was shared with landed elites to exercise control over the state.
A Marxist understanding of the Indian state shows the class character of the state, serving the dominant classes and using coercive means to safeguard their socio- economic structure, if need be.
Gandhian Approach
Gandhian approach to study the nature of state is based on the concept of Swaraj. It means absence of alien rule and establishment of self- Government. He considered state a necessary evil and supported Thoreau’s dictum that “that Government is the best which governs the least”. It says that Government is best when interference with people’s liberties and rights is minimum.
In Gandhi’s assessment, the state (Western type) was the symbol of violence in concentrated form. In order to ensure allegiance from the citizens the state (which means its authority) applies coercion or violent measures mercilessly.
Once he said, “the individual has a soul but the state is a soulless machine, the state can never be weaned away from violence to which it owes its existence”. In other words, Gandhi treated both state and violence or coercion synonymous. He further says that there is a state but not violence or coercion in any form cannot be imagined.
He gathered experience in South Africa that more and more power to the state meant more and more violence or greater amount of coercion. In the name of the maintenance of law and order the South Africa’s white government acquired enormous power and this led to the ruthless administration, exploitation and curtailment of individuals’ liberty.
He once said that a political organisation based on violence would never receive his approval. Rather, he is always afraid of such an organisation. What he felt about the Western state system is quite explicit in a comment which he made, “I look upon an increase in the power of the state with greatest fear, because although while apparently doing good by minimising exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality which is at the root of progress”
From the above analysis it is absolutely clear that Gandhi rejected the state of Western model on the ground that it represented violence or coercion. Now the question is why did he oppose violence so much? The modern state, according to Gandhi, was about to destroy individuality—that individual freedom and spontaneous urge to work.
Secondly, the individualism is the root cause of progress. Gandhi believed that nothing could be done by applying coercion. Again, the individual cannot be forced to do any work against his will or spontaneous desire. To put it in other words, according to Gandhi the progress of the society can be achieved through the functions which the individuals perform willingly.
But Gandhi appears to us as more aggressive. Under any circumstances the individual’s freedom cannot be sacrificed. Gandhi’s love for individual’s freedom ranks him with the great anarchist philosophers the central idea is that to Gandhi state is an undesirable political organisation because of its close connection with violence.
Gandhi’s Swaraj means Government by the consent and participation of the people. For him direct democracy is impossible in a large country like India. After independence the constitution makers of India adopted some features of Gandhian state. Some of these are stress on egalitarian Society, untouchability and special care towards the weaker sections of society. In fact, the wanted to establish decentralization of power through Panchayat Raj System all over India. Further he justified the existence of state in terms of the functions it performs, so long as and to the extent it performs the functions which lead to the good, welfare and upliftment of all human beings.
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