Capitalism and Freedom

 The world is a complex place with different nations working together and against each other, united by self interest and divided by the same. Broadly speaking they are illustrated below 

The post colonial, post world war II world became a bipolar world based on the Communist or Socialism ideology and Democratic Capitalist ideology. These came to be known as the East bloc centered around erstwhile USSR along with East European countries and the Western bloc dominated by USA and Western Europe. 

The broad definition of Communism is that of a centralised state with the state owning the means of production and distribution and gave each according to his needs. There is no private ownership and there are no rigid classes. The aim was to create a society where the state was the absolute authority and ensured every persons basic needs were met. There was centralized Government and the figure of authority was usually assisted by a small group of persons who were completely unaccountable and did what they pleased. 

The definition of a Democracy is a state where individual rights are given importance and freedom of speech, and right to choose a representative to rule over the nation is conferred by a free and fair election. From these flow right to work, own property, practice religion and seek justice comes. 

So between the four terms various countries are Communist Socialist, Communist Capitalist, Democratic Socialist and Democratic Capitalist. Some are monarchies with forms of democracy or dictatorship. Then there are oligarchies and theocratic states based on religion. 

I will now touch a bit on ancient India and it's experience as a colony. After which I will restrict my blog to India and how its structure has evolved over the 76 years since independence. 

While we talk fondly of Ram Rajya, possibly it talks of basically the rule of an unelected ruler who by example lives an exemplary life of an ideal person. Even though Ram was not elected he ruled with the pleasure of the people. Ram Rajya was never meant to be Hindu Raj and Rama as an avatar of God was the same as God of any religion. 

In addition to that we touch on Ashoka who was a democratic monarch and some of the Mughals especially Akbar and Prince Dara Shikoh who did not become King but were tolerant monarchs who believed in fair play and equality. There were Rajputs, Nawabs, princely states and all had disparate forms of government, but maybe the rulers in some cases left the local people to themselves and the system of local justice and Panchayats were present. After nearly a century of colonisation India or Bharat had to make a choice. 

Our founding fathers were mostly lawyers educated in Britain and the model of British Parliamentary democracy was what seemed a natural choice. While Gandhiji had read the pulse of India and wanted a decentralized form of government with a emphasis of village units of Government. His views were not acceptable to the other Congress leaders who were enamoured by the Western model of modern democracy. With a civil service and bureaucratic structure in place it seemed natural to replace one set of rulers with another.

What did our rulers get right and wrong in 1947? We gave this country of illiterate poor universal franchise to all citizens above the age of 21. Even though freedom came with partition based on religion which could have been avoided the country refused to become a theocratic state based on religion and gave all citizens the right to practice their religion. A fast track colonization of the remaining princely states was what India got relatively right in most cases but horribly wrong in some cases, the price of which we continue to pay. The leaders did not put in a framework of a uniform civil code and in a
deeply religious state gave minorities rights to practice their religion even if the religions had perverse laws which were against natural individual rights based gender, caste or class differences. In the face of large diversity there was a fear of balkanization and so the Center became disproportionately powerful. The rulers were deeply influenced by Socialism and for a nation seeped in poverty and lack of industrialization the state tried to emulate the Soviet Union and even as it gave the right to it's people to vote, it imposed massive central planning and made government and public sector the primary drivers of modernization and industrial development. 

It is very easy to be wise later but even as our first leaders were human and made some choices not all of which were correct, their intentions were by and large selfless, however much social media and propaganda would have us believe otherwise. The legacy of rule of law, impartial judiciary, disciplined apolitical army and respect for political opponents along with respect for parliamentary process were no mean achievements credit for all would go to our first Prime Minister. This could have easily gone wrong especially as Pandit Nehru was very popular and could have easily succumbed to the temptation to become a dictator. To my mind Nehru was a emotional person who thought that the Socialist model and Central control was the correct thing for India and as a result the entrepreneurial Indian with his genius was stifled and many Indians who shone in foreign lands felt frustrated in India. Nehru was a liberal educated person who believed in science and technology, but he did not realize that India and Indians have innate local wisdom which needed to be appreciated and nurtured. While his book discovery of India says a lot Nehru by his actions seemed to look down upon blind religious faith. So many of us brought up on the Nehru Gandhi ethos of liberal tolerant majority did not realize that the magnanimity shown by him to minorities and backward classes was creating a suppressed resentment which did not find open expression. Nehru had his critics in the Right wing Hindu Congressmen who disagreed with him. He stopped listening and by the time he lost the war against China he was a spent force. 

The Congress of the freedom struggle started slowly losing it's way and remaining in power became an end in itself rather than a means to a noble end. In many respects the freedom of India was eroded and his daughter continued the same legacy but when cornered by senior Congressmen she hit back by unleashing a streak of authoritarianism. She centralized power to herself and despite a huge electoral mandate in 1971 she became an insecure leader and surrounded herself with corrupt persons and fake Godmen. She imposed Internal Emergency and became a full fledged dictator. her economic policies were poor socialism and sham welfarism and this lead to India remaining a poor underdeveloped country. Her assassination at the hands of Sikh bodyguards gave an opportunity to her son a reluctant politician to rule India.

The Rajiv Gandhi era was at least the beginning of economic reforms and a saga of missed opportunities. He had a decent team of technocrats along with a crop of popular yong and old leaders who could have taken charge and rebooted India. But crucial mistakes in handling the Ram Mandir issue,( opening the locks of Babri Masjid), overturning by ordinance a supreme court ruling in favour of a Muslim widow and promoting family in Bofors gun scam all led to his downfall. It opened a window of opportunity for the Right wing Hindu parties to come out and openly mobilize the larger Hindu mass against the policy of pseudo-secularism. The country was once more engulfed in violence and communal hatred leading to the voice of the illiberal amog becoming more and more strident and vocal.

A weakened Congress led to steady rise of the Right wing parties and after an era of unstable coalition Governments and the assassination of  Rajiv Gandhi in the midst of an election campaign the Congress managed to have a slender majority in Parliament. A government lead by Mr. PV Narasimha Rao at last made economic reforms its main plank and created a political climate for far reaching economic reforms. It distanced itself from Nehruvian socialism and Indira Gandhi's flawed welfarism. India woke up and started showing unprecedented growth. However, this government was unable to contain the rise of the Right wing BJP and under the mask of a moderate leader it established its first coalition government. The Vajpayee government continued the good work of the Rao government and reform and economic prosperity continued. But in 2004 against all expectations the Congress once more came to power as head of a coalition government led by the economic reformer Dr. Manmohan Singh. He was able to deliver strong economic growth and prosperity for a decade but his work was undone by two factors, the greed of the coalition partners and their corruption and the role of the extra constitutional authority of Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi who exercised power without responsibility. 

Finally, in 2014 there came a leader from Gujrat, Mr. Narendra Modi who ran a sustained campaign on the plank of inclusive growth and against the policy paralysis of a corrupt UPA government and has ruled the country for the last 9 years. This Government has as a positive been the best in terms of last mile delivery of welfare to the poor but has failed spectacularly on the promise of economic prosperity and better governance. To top it all it has pushed a communal agenda and played divisive politics to an extent that is unimaginable in India. The leader has become a popular cult figure and has managed the media to such an extent that the only source of news remains resource scarce small youtube channels. All said and done I admit that he remains popular and may return to power again. 

Over the years in my opinion I have felt that I have not understood the value of capitalism and vacillated between being a supporter of welfare and better public policy and felt that capitalism led to rising inequality and did not quite understand trickle down effect of capitalism. I used to feel that surviving on crumbs from the table of the rich is hardly a dignified existence.I have failed to understand how farm loan waivers for poor farmers and free power and electricity is poor economics and rich tycoons siphoning off money to tax havens and defaulting on loans is all right. The aspect of business share markets and the wealth made by investing in others work and reaping rewards by speculation rather than hard work makes little sense to me. The exploitation and massive destruction of the earth in the name of development and progress for profit certainly do not resonate with the environmentalist in me. Democracy has given the people a weapon to overthrow their rulers by the exercise of the right to vote and the Indian electorate have shown wisdom beyond my expectation in 1977 when an all powerful Indira Gandhi was defeated. Many times the Indian voter has taught arrogant leaders a lesson by voting in the underdog. 

The issue of corruption stems from the need for money to win elections and to my mind the anonymous election bonds are the biggest form of corruption. Strong leaders with large majorities often undermine democratic institution which is a cause of major concern, however I am an optimist and India is a story of contradictions where amidst the worst poverty there are the richest persons, amidst communal and caste wars there are stories of incredible tolerance and fraternity. The intermingling of food habits clothes and cuisine create a tapestry of a united India amidst its diversity. India contains multitudes and is home to a wealth of spiritual knowledge and mother of many religions. 

I do not claim to be an expert but I feel a few things can help. These require deep deliberation and policy implementation. 

• We need state sponsored elections and constituency delimitation based on population. 
• We need electoral reforms in the form of proportional representation. A Group of constituencies are clubbed together and recognised political parties nominate a group of candidates. Depending on the vote share percentages the first of the candidates are elected. This will ensure that no party has a brute majority. So a party with less than 40% of vote share gets over 60% of seats in parliament and can create laws at will. 
• The concept of party whip must be abolished and members of parliament must be allowed to vote based on their conscious. 
• All anonymous funding of parties must stop and political parties must come under the Right to Information Act.
• The reservation policy for backward classes must to restricted by allowing the use of this privilege twice in life, one for education and once for a job, preventing its misuse. 
• If the lower house gets representation based on population the upper house seats must be allocated based on economic performance.
• Education and Health must become mainstream issues which can decide the results of elections. Health reform with a larger spend on public health is needed. Freeing of the education sector and better modern education with a head heart and hand model being its cornerstone. 
• The Right to Recall dishonest, under performing representatives by going through a powerful ombudsman  mechanism. 
• Major police reform and strengthening the judiciary, Election Commission, CAG and making parliament a vibrant place for debate and interaction is important too. 
• In case of split election mandates a national Government should be formed. 
• Government must get out of many things and allow free market to do it's job and must act as a facilitator rather than doing many things badly and inefficiently. 
• A humane Government with a social security scheme and gainful employment for all it's citizens. A universal basic income scheme is needed to take care of the very poor destitute. 

Finally, we need to ensure that we nurture our democracy, allow capitalism to free up the genius of the Indian citizen. A stable prosperous peaceful country will once again create an atmosphere of Spirituality. The wisdom of India its scriptures and tradition of reflection has created great men and this must continue. This is possible only when we allow people freedom to live as free citizens and unleash the creativity that is possible in a free liberal, capitalist state. A truth and reconciliation commission to put a closure to the poison of communal and caste violence must be instituted in India. 

Disclaimer: I have truly rambled in this post and tried to open a debate on the value of an enlightened freedom with citizens exercising free will and true Swaraj. 

Vispi Jokhi