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CHAPTER VI

C 0 N C L U S I 0 N

In the preceding pages, we have sought to examine the

impact of democratic politics and pressures on the Indian state's

project of social transformation, by focussing illustratively on

three imp art ant areas viz., welfare, secularism and

development. In relation to each of these, we have analysed one

significant challenge articulated through democratic processes

parliamentary, para-parliamentary and extra-parliamentary - and

eliciting varying state responses.

In the sphere of welfare, thus, we analysed the challenge

represented by the food crisis in Kalahandi district of Orissa,

and the use of institutions of parliamentary democracy - such as

adversarial politics in the legislature, a vigilant press and a

judiciary receptive to public interest litigation - to bring the

is sue to public notice as well as to demand government

accountability. In the area of secularism, we examined the

controversy generated by the Supreme Court's judgement in the

Shah Bano case, and the subsequent enactment of the Muslim

Women's (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 to assuage

fears of Muslim Personal Law being undermined. This campaign

belongs to the category of para-parliamentary politics, for the

demand was largely articulated by Muslim community leadership

through established channels of ecclesiastical authority,while

Muslim Members of Parliament played an important, but supportive

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and adjunctive, role. Finally, in relation to arguably the most

contentious development project of the decade, we have assessed

the extra-parliamentary challenge mounted by the Narmada Bachao

Andolan against the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam. This

movement, it is significant, has deliberately and

programrratically eschewed partisan and parliamentary politics,

preferring to tread the lonely - if not always efficacious - path

of extra-institutional protest. In these three case-studies,

thus, we have highlighted the varying ways in which democratic

processes of different types have been deployed to make demands

upon the state, and identified also state responses to these.

A second level of argument in this study has attempted to

discuss democracy as discourse, as this is expressed not only

in the demands and claims made upon the state by oppositional

movements of different kinds, but also in the state's own

response to them. A state that derives legitimacy from, at least

in part, its democratic credentials, can manifestly not be seen

to be undemocratic, even if many of its practices are profoundly

so. Thus, state responses take the form not only of policy, but

also of a complex discourse of justifying principles. This work

has argued that an analysis of the claims about democracy - often

including claims about rights, justice and equality - invoked by

challenges to the state, and the state's own counter-discourse

of democracy, adducing arguments of public purpose, reasons of

state, and the common good, must supplement the more orthodox and

even somewhat functionalist exercise of studying democratic

pressures and state response in t~rms of efficaciousness.

For this purpose, we have differentiated between two

conceptions of democracy a first, narrower definition of

democracy as a procedure for decision-making, and a second, more

substantive notion of it. The first is a minimalist,

institutionalist and even instrumentalist conception, which

interprets democracy as the organizing principle of the polity.

The desirability of democracy is seen to vest entirely in its

fairness as a decision-making procedure; the opportunities for

representation it provides to its citizens; and the

accountability of leaders it is supposed to facilitate. In this

conception, then, democracy is essentially a mechanism for

arriving at common decisions, one which says little or nothing

about the reasons why we consider democracy inherently desirable.

The second conception identified here invokes the richness,

complexity and meaningful substance of the democratic ideal. It

views democracy as a value that should imbue and permeate all

spheres of social life and social relations. It is only within an

interpretation of democracy in this sense that other social and

political values, such as rights, justice, liberty and equality,

have their being. On this view, then, there are values and

principles meant to be realized by democratic institutions, and

political-institutional arrangements which can help us achieve

these are an important element - but not the whole of the

democratic concern. To mistake the part for the whole, and the

instrument for the ideal, is an egregious error which has been

loudly echoed in recent events in Eastern Europe, which have been

welcomed by Western nations as representing the ultimate

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capitulation of Them to Us. The justification of the democratic

principle should thus relate to the genuine concern for civil

liberties and political as well as social rights, with equality

and justice. To reduce democracy to a matter of devising the

fairest possible decision-making procedure is, on this account,

to undermine it most profoundly.

The next section will summarize the conclusions from the

case-studies in this perspective, while section III will assess

this evidence in the light of the constraints - identified in

Chapter II -upon democracy, emanating from both society and the

state. Both these sections will reinforce the twin emphasis of

this work on normative-theoretical as well as descriptive-

empirical aspects, in the study of the state and democracy as

well as of their relationship to each other. This perspective is

also echoed in the distinction we have drawn between democratic

institutions and processes, on the one hand, and democratic

discourses, on the other, as well as in the parallel distinction

posited between formal and substantive conceptions of democracy.

Finally, section IV of this chapter will, on the basis of the

empirical evidence, address the questions of state-society

relations, state capability and autonomy, and the role of

democratic mediations.

II

A formalist and institutionalist perspective on Kalahandi

would suggest the efficacy of parliamentary democracy. It is

undoubtedly the case that it was the highlighting of starvation

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deaths and the controversial (and still disputed) sale of

children in the press and the legislature that provoked Prime

Minis t e ria 1 visits and the sanction of large amounts of relief

funds t 0 the district. Even Central Study Teams, as we have

seen, commonly cite news reports about "distress" as the

provocation for their visits to Kalahandi. The House Committee on

Drought of the Orissa Legislative Assembly also noted that

district officials took notice of these events only when

questions were raised on the floor of the house. Thus. at one

1 eve 1 , the evidence is a testimony to the Dreze and Sen thesis

that adversarial politics and a free press are the factors

explaining India's successful as compared with China's

unsuccessful - record of preventing famine.

There is, however, need for some analytical caution in such

an interpretation of events. Two factors, in particular, may be

singled out. Firstly, the persisting misery and grinding poverty

of Kalahandi 's condition shows that the effects of such triggers

are short-lived and transient. When reports of starvation deaths

become repetitive, they cease to be sensational, disappear from

the columns of newspapers, and the problem is henceforth

assumed not to exist Only the event is newsworthy, and poverty

is clearly not an event . Thus, the functionalist view of

democratic politics in terms of an input- output model viz. the

highlighting of the issue by the opposition and the press, and

the influx of relief funds- is limited, if not misleading.

Secondly, it is clear that at no time has there been any

protest - violent or non-violent - from the victims of the food

crisis themselves. We have already noted that the people of

Kalahandi have been passive, even submissive. and have not

engaged in collective action of any kind. Thus. if democratic

institutions were instrumental in bringing Kalahandi to public

notice. it was a profoundly non-participatory democracy that was

at work.

This perception reinforces our argument that the philosophy

of welfare adopted by the Indian state has been closely allied to

a needs-based conception of justice in theory, and to notions of

charity and altruism in practice. Rights have been completely

ali en t 0 this conception of welfare. The substance of

citizenship inheres in rights; and in Kalahandi, we find a

manifest absence of the preconditions for the exercise even of

political rights, let alone social rights, which would mandate a

more radical participatory notion of democracy.

In such a cant ext, then. the policy initiative does and

n e c e s sa r i 1 y mu s t r e s t ex c 1 u s i v e 1 y w i t h t h e s t at e . Access to the

state is demonstrably restrictive, with legislative, judicial and

journalistic interventions being used to recall to the state its

avowed responsibi 1 i ty for providing welfare. These

interventions, moreover, are effected by intermediaries, rat her

than by the affected citizens t hems e 1 v e s . If the lack of

education is taken to explain the absence of response to

Baidyanath Mishra's notices seeking information about the food

crisis, the need for people to be made aware and conscious of

their rights has been underscored both by the Mishra Commission

Report, as well as by the Orissa High Court judgement that

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followed it. Further. as we have seen, the claims made upon the

state were strenuously contested by it. Strong denials of crisis

were accompanied by attempts to influence the course of the

inquiry instituted by the Supreme Court, and to doctor its

findings.

As in the previous case, the mobilization of opinion against

the Shah Bano judgement was organized by the community leadership

which construed it as state interference in the sacrosanct sphere

of Muslim Personal Law, a threat to minority identity and a

covert attempt to undermine its cultural rights. Alarmed at the

possible electoral consequences indications of which had

already surfaced in the by-election results in a few states

the Government quickly responded with a legislative enactment

placing Muslim women outside the purview of those provisions of

the criminal law - uniformly applicable to all citizens - which

also govern maintenance for divorced women. The counter-

mobilization. against the Bill, was heard by the Prime Minister

himself, though he chose to heed instead the community leadership

which was obviously a more secure and reliable guarantor of

votes. The common cause made by Muslim clergy and conservative

male Muslims in Parliament was successful in securing the seal of

legislative approval for a remarkably retrogressive bill. quite

oblivious of the opinions of the category of citizens negatively

affected by it ' viz., Muslim women divorcees and potentiai

divorcees.

In Chapter IV, we identified five strains in the argument

from majoritarian representative democracy which were employed by

the government and its spokespersons in Parliament, in the course

of the debate on the Muslim Women's Bill. These arguments appeal,

variously, to the superior and sovereign right of parliament as a

representative institution (as opposed to the appointed Supreme

Court) to legislate; the assertion of the majoritarian principle

as the fairest procedure for decision-making, justifying the

Congress majority's right t o enact the b i 1 1 ; the subtle but

unmistakable identification between the state and the majority

community, which is therefore advised legislative restraint in

the matter of the personal law of the minority Muslim community;

the supposed . wishes o f t h e mi n o r i t y , as represented by its

community leadership, and the claim that 90-99% of Indian Muslims

supported this legislation; and, finally, that the state needs to

be concerned with the protection of the minority as a whole, not

with Muslim women, constituting a minority within a minority. In

this fashion the principles of representative democracy 1 ent

themselves to, and proved extremely serviceable for. the defence

of forces supporting patriarchy and religious conservatism.

Claims of cultural community rights were, moreover, used by

spokesmen of the Muslim community to enlist the support of the

state in facilitating its continuing control over its members,

notably women and simultaneously undermining the

constitutionally guaranteed rights of citizenship to Muslim

women. By privileging the Muslim woman s community identity over

her identity as a citizen, a filter of community control was

introduced. through which alone she could have access to the

state. The government, for its part, legislated a self-denying

provision. restricting its role to that of a mere arbiter in

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allocating responsibilities for the upkeep of divorcees. By thus

endorsing the primacy of cultural comrr.unity rights over the

rights of citizenship, the government voluntarily abridged the

jurisdiction of its own criminal laws, intended to apply equally

to all citizens. The fear of democratic censure, in the form of

votes. thus lEd it to abandon considerations not only of

secularism, but also of social justice, equality and the \!'ery

basic rights of equal citizenship.

This denial of the rights of citizenship was, it is

significant, endorsed by the government, which conferred official

recognition on ecclesiastical leadership as the authentic voice

of the community, reserving for itself only the role of endorsing

legislation initiated by and acceptable to the community. The

recognition of the ultimate and supreme authority of the

comrrtUnity to legislate for its members implied that the affected

category of citizens was denied agency, autonomy and rights on

its own behalf. Not merely democratic institutions, but even

a c c e s s t o t h e 1 a w c o u r t s wa s t h u s res t r i c t e d , i f n o t a c t u a 1 1 y

closed, effecting the disablement of the Muslim woman in relation

to her rights of citizenship. With her "cultural" rights having

been secured at the expense of her civil rights, she was

effectively disenfranchised, and deliberately excluded from the

purview of even the most minimal 1 egal guarantee of gender

justice.

Thus, the mode of para-parliamentary protest enabled the

articulation of claims of the priority of community rights over

the rights of equal citizenship, and were allowed to undermine

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individual civic rights. Within Parliament, Ministers of the

Union Government appealed to majoritarian principles of decision­

making, and upheld the sovereign power of the highest legislative

body as the chief justification of the legislation. Ironically,

however. it was pressures on the government from community

leadership outside the legislative process that were definitively

instrumental in bringing about this legislation thus

demonstrating not so much the sovereignt~ of parliament as its

role as a formal register and legitimiser of interests not

necessarily represented within it

Finally, the extra-parliamentary protest against the

construction of the Narmada Valley Projects examined in Chapter V

has not met with any significant degree of success in its claims

upon the state. It has, however, been markedly effective in two

respects firstly, as an important contributory factor in the

termination of financial assistance from the World Bank; and.

secondly, as instrumental in inaugurating the debate on

environmentalist objections to the dominant model of development.

The Narmada Bachao Andolan's programme has come to be regarded as

symbolic of an alternative development strategy

succeeded in placing the issue of development on the

and has

national

agenda as a contested question. In interrogating the dominant

conception of development, the movement has drawn attention not

only t 0 its unviability and its inequitous and unjust

consequences, but also to the profoundly undemocratic and

essentially technocratic nature of development planning. It has

pleaded for a more open, consultative, participatory process for

decision-making on development. and recalled to the state the

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fact that social injustices generated by development projects are

not taken into account by the planning process itself-

The NBA has, as we have seen, resolutely refused to enter

the formal democratic process. and has desisted even from

lobbying political parties. Its ambivalence on approaching the

judiciary is also indicative of its preference for extra·

institutional patterns of protest As and when politicians

e . g .. in Madhya Pradesh -have pledged to promote its cause. and

even won elections on this platform, they have generally reneged

on their promises .

The state, on the other hand, has faced the challenge of

this movement through a multi-dimensional strategy. It has

resorted to repression, forced evictions, arrests, assaults and

harassment of the protestors . It has also engaged in the

counter-mobilization of demonstrations and rallies in shows of

strength that are labelled "people vs . people" confrontations.

Its discourse has appealed to ideas of public purpose and raison

d'etat to justify the common good being served by the project.

while displacement is a necessary sacrifice entailed by it .

Those being displaced, it is argued, in any case need to be

assimilated into the cultural and economic mainstream . Above all .

the state mandates the agenda of democracy . It decides which

issues are open to participatory processes, and which are to be

placed beyond democratic decision-making. Development planning

is one such non-negotiable item, justified exclusively by

reference to the common good as this is revealed to and

understood by qualified planners.

To this. the NBA counterposes a twofold challenge. It

points. firstlY. to the state's violation of its own democratic

credentials, through repression and the denial of civil

liberties. It also appeals, secondly, to a participatory notion

of democracy, invoking the right to be consulted, the

tribal peoples to ways of life, etc. Thus to the

right of

existing

agenda of rights - which are being honoured in the breach rather V

than the observance - it adds new rights claims drawn from both a

substantive ideal of democracy, as well as from environmentally·

derived ideas of equality and community.

III

We turn now to an examination of the conditions - in both

society and the state - that inhibit or otherwise constrain

democracy. In Chapter II, it was argued that inequitous social

relations and the logic of democracy are the two factors located

in society that tend to constrain democracy. Our case study

materials suggest very strongly. that inequalities of class.

caste, and gender. and social relations of domination based on

these differences, make the project of democracy more difficult

to effectuate. All three case-studies make it amply clear that ./

the categories of citizens negatively affected are among the most

vulnerable. In Kalahandi and the Narmada Valley, these are

primarily the marginalised peoples of the scheduled tribes. as

also members of the scheduled castes. They are largely poor.

illiterate. dependent for their sustenance on the forest and

forest produce. and generally unequipped to enter the national

economic or cultural mainstream. Greater remoteness from the

conditions of even formal democracy is hard to imagine. In the

remaining case, the casualties are Muslim women, mostly of the

poorer sections, who have been or may in the future be divorced.

Secondly, the argument about the logic of democracy suggests

that as channels of political participation multiply, its impact

gets limited. our study of the struggle in the Narmada Valley

would seem to bear this out. As participation expands, its impact

is paradoxically reduced. Claims for group rights of all kinds

e.g., demands for caste-based reservations or religious

separatism - get reduced to problems of crisis management and

orderly governance, rather than being seen as questions

negotiating a redefinition of the political agenda.

The second set of factors limiting democracy are

institutional in nature three of them being extrinsic to the

state, and another three intrinsic to it. Among the extrinsic

factors identified in Chapter II, we considered, first. the way

in which the public realm is defined, with some areas being

placed beyond state action. Our case studies afford two

illustrations of this argument. In the Shah Bano case. we find

that the protection afforded to personal law against

uniformization by the civil law of the state is, at the behest of

community leadership enthusiastically endorsed by the government.

now extended to criminal law as well. In the Narmada Valley. the

state as the controller and manager of the public agenda. decides

to place some issues on a non-negotiable, closed agenda, to be

governed by the same considerations as prevail with respect to

national security and to be justified by appeal to similar

criteria.

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., A second institutional factor pertains to the dependence of

the state on the process of capital accumulation. and its

protection of the long-term interests of capital. Though strictly

non-demonstrable we have noted how legislative committees and

judicial commissions alike have commented on the widespread

corruption in government departments in Kalahandi and the

collusion of officials with contractors, traders and moneylenders

to exploit the poor and vulnerable. In the Narmada Valley

Projects also, allegations of corruption have been levelled at

the highest state functionaries, particularly of the Gujarat

Government.

The decline of political parties, as suggestive of the

decline of democracy, is a truism of political practice in almost

all parts of the world. With respect to our case study

materials the evidence is mixed. In Kalahandi it was the

Opposition partie~ in the Orissa Legislative Assembly that t oak

the debate beyond the newspapers, leading to the appointment of a

House Comrrittee, as well a~ to visits by the Prime Minister. In

the debate on the Muslim Women's Bill, the Opposition parties in

Parliament were extremely vocal i n t h E' i r p rot e s t , but the

govern~ent s majority enabled it to carry the measure. In any

case, recent years have ~itnessed the proliferation of political

parties which resemble pressure groups in that they have single

point agendas, rather than composite programmes. The Bahujan

Samaj Party.the Janata Dal and the BJP have all deviated from the

classical model of a political party as it has obtained in India

and elsewhere.

The three factors internal to the state were identified as

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follows in Chapter II : an increasing concentration of power in

the executive branch of gcvernment; the fusion of executive,

legislative and judicial powers; and an expansion in the law and

order rna chinE ry accompanying the contraction of welfare

functions. This last factor has no relevance in relation to our

case-study rr;aterials, though it may be considered significant as

a factot impeding de~ocratic processes in general.

The concentration of power in the executive branch. indeed

in the Prime Minister's Office, is evident in all the three cases

that we have examined. Kalahandi merited three Prime Ministerial

visits between 1987 and 1993. as well as one ministerial and one

secretarial visit to report to the Prime Minister on its

condition The outcry against the Muslim Women s Bill was also

largely attended by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi personally. in a

series of meetings held with women s groups. and ~embers of the

in t e 11 i gent s i a . Even the drafting of the legislation apparently

involved Wuslim community leadership interacting directly with

the Prime Winister, rather than Muslim~. or women or other members

of the Congress Party The Narmada Valley Projects

throughout been dependent upcn Prime Ministerial support

have

from

the first decision of the concerned c.hief ministers to let the

Prime Minister decide the quantum of waters and their

distributicn (in contravention of the spirit of an inter state

tribunal award), through Rajiv Gandhi's personal initiative in

approving the project in 1987, to the more recent involvement of

P.V. Narasinr.a Rao in influencing the Union Minister for Water

Resources to publicly recant on the commitment for a review.

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The fusion of executive and legislative power is more easily

documented, than that of judicial power with either of the other

two branches. The role of parliament is, as our analysis of

parlif.mentary debates on Kalahandi and on the Narmada Valley

Projects has shown, extremely limited, even disinterested. In the

decate on the Wuslim Women's Bill, by contrast, the oppositicn s

participation was considerable, in numbers as well as in

in tensity This episode, however, highlights more starkly than

any other the facility with which a parliamentary majority can

ensure the passage of a legislation to which the executive is

firmly comrritted.

The Shah Bano case carne also to be represented as a conflict

between the legislature and the judiciary. In rea 1 it y. it was an

executive attempt - reinforced, as we have noted above, by the

government s legislative majority at overcoming a judicial .,

ob~ .. t ruction thc,t was proving to be pc,litically inconvenient. Our

examir:ation of case-law in the aftermath of the Act. however has

sh c v.tr. thct High Courts hc:ve, in a nun,be•r of cases, delivered

progressive judgements in maintenance cases of Muslim divorcees,

by apf•ealing to thE ab~;ence of a retrospective clause in the Act.

On the other two issues the Supreme Court has been

d e:· ci d ed 1 y cau t i c.u s, while lower c.cc:ts have b ee·n DIC re

syrrpathetic. Thus the Supreme Court s judgement in the two

cases on Kalahar:cli approvingly cited governrr•E•nt stc:ti~tics abc.•vt

relief measures and development programmes. It directed the

g ov e rnrren t only tc facilitate the f~nctioning of the District

Level Natural Calamities Corr.mittees. thereby providing mere space

for initiatives by se:cial workers ar:c1 activists. The• Or·is! . .s f.'~£.b

C c-'u rt , on the other hand, was much more forthright in its

condemnation of the district administration, in its judgement

awarding compensation to the families of those who the Mishra

Commission had determined to have died by starvation. Likewise,

the Supreme Court has not assumed any noticeable initiative in

cases pertaining to the Narmada Valley Projects, whi 1 e 1 ower

courts especially at the district 1 evel have delivered

sympathetic verdicts on compensation and granted stays on forced

evictions.

IV

Our evidence, thus, would appear to substantiate the

argument - hypothesised in Chapter II - for a non·essentialised

view of both state and society. The heterogeneity of societal

interests is a commonplace of Indian political sociology which

must, this study shows, be supplemented by a parallel recognition

of a high degree of differentiatedness in state structures

themselves. To speak of state-society relations in an abstract,

universalistic sense, is to posit each as a fully and finally

constituted unity. It also presumes this relationship - between

the unified monolith of the state, on the one hand, and a more or

less coherent entity, society, on the other- to be competitive

and conflictual. However. the internal differentiation that

characterizes both forces us to abandon this essentialist view of

state and society, as well as the cardboard model of their

relationship to each other. It compels us also to reconsider the

notion of boundaries in relation to our case-study materials.

It was argued (in Chapter II) that the boundaries between

state and society are historically and socially constructed. and

are constantly being redrawn, frequently at the instance of the

state. e.g .. when it seeks to enlarge the sphere of effective

action for itself. In doing so, it was argued, the state becomes

increasingly dependent on the cooperation of other forces in

society. Two of our case-studies authenticate this observation.

One of the most striking examples of the redefinition, by the

state, of the boundary between the public and the private in

India's post-independence history, is the Shah Bane case and the

legislative initiative that it provoked. This enactment

paradoxically legislated the abbreviation of the state s role in

the area of its criminal jurisdiction, by exempting a category of

citizens from its provisions, such that they may be governed by

their religious personal laws. The Narmada case exemplifies

exactly the obverse, insofar as it shows the state relentlessly

committed to developmentalist interventionism, and resolutely

opposed to granting any protection for the tribal communities of

the Narmada Valley to pursue their own way of life. If the

retreat of the state from the project of secularism enjoys the

support of a politically consequential community leadership, its

invasive commitment to the project of development derives support

not from the project affected people, but from powerful political

and economic interests.

Both these cases also show how increasing interventionism

engenders fragmentation and even a lack of coordination within .,

state structures. The Shah Bano case was, of course. depicted as

a conflict between an unrepresentative judiciary and a

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democratically elected legislature, and was as such exploited by

the executive . Our narrative of the events leading up to the

enactment of the Muslim Women's Bill has shown how the government

' fought tooth and nail, a Private Members' Bill (the Banatwalla

Bill) seeking to accomplish a similar objective, just six months

earlier. The official definition of secularism also underwent

shifts and modifications accordingly. The sheer size of the

Narmada Valley Projects. and their location in two states. has

also, as we have seen, led to considerable disarticulation. The

working of the Narmada Control Authority at cross purposes with

the Ministries of Social Welfare and Environment as well as the

dissent voiced by individual bureaucrats at the central and state

level , point to a lack of coordination between different policy

networks. The role of non-governmental organizations in the

programme of rehabilitation and resettlement, as well as in the

task of obtaining popular legitimacy for the projects, is also

suggestive of the permeability of state boundaries. Even as we

recognize the existence of boundaries between state and society,

our evidence suggests the inadvisability of assuming that these

are delineated neatly and in perpetuity.

While questioning the simplistic and even reductionist view

of state and society as unified entities. situated in a

relationship of necessary opposition to each other, we also

contest the exclusivist view that an explanation of politics must

necessarily be either state-centered or society-centered. The

multi-faceted nature of social and political processes encourages

us to reject such a binary choice, and to abandon the search for

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one, constant and unvarying independent variable as the password

to a methodologically acceptable and ~true' explanation of

politics. At the theoretical level, we countered (in Chapter II)

one such influential view- that of the statist school- and our

evidence strongly reinforces this critique. If the state were

indeed an independent actor, it should logically have been better

able to accomplish its goals of social transformation and to

effectively implement its self-ordained agenda. That is

demonstrably not the case. The constraints that have been

identified in this study relate to the democratic process, but

are underpinned by societal factors of great importance, notably

social and economic inequalities. At the same time, it is

impossible to consider these inequalities in isolation from state

policies that may reinforce rather than redress them, or from the

role of the state in relation to democratic institutions and

processes, which it routinely manipulates. To exclusively

privilege either the state or society is to ignore the internal

complexity of both these categories, of the realities they

describe (and sometimes even disguise) and. of course the

irreducibility of this reality to two arbitrary and mutually

exclusive conceptual categories.

Our case-studies also illustrate the inadequacy of the two

rival approaches which the statist school has attacked for their

society-centered bias, viz., pluralism and marxism. The pluralist

perspective is shown to be manifestly wanting, as the democratic

political process is far from being a register of all interests

and an impartial arbiter of them. Critics of pluralism have

pointed out that agenda-setting is as significant, if not more,

.,

than decision-making in determining the locus of power in a

society (Lukes, 1974). Shortchanged interests may thus provide

the clue to the question df power, and all our case-studies

especially Kalahandi and Narmada - compel our attention to the

fact that the poor are voiceless and politically marginalized

even in a formally democratic pluralist polity.

Our evidence suggests, further, that explanations which

hinge exclusively on the class factor do not necessarily tell the

whole story. Nee-Marxist political sociology in the west has

already begun to recognize the importance of cleavages other than

class, such as gender and race. In India. social inequalities

derive not only from class differences, but also from those of

caste, gender and community which may even overlap, in s orne

cases. with class-derived inequalities. The problem of tribal

poverty in Kalahandi, for instance, is as much a problem of

landless labour in a system of gross structural inequalities.

Shah Bano, of course, is an obvious example of gender as a source

of inequality, which patriarchal interests endeavour to entrench.

The prospects of tribal communities being displaced from the

Narmada Valley similarly suggest that caste-derived inequalities

are extendable into and in turn reinforce class-derived ones. The

camp 1 exit y of society, as it is fractured along several axes

class, caste, gender - and sometimes along more than one axis

simultaneously, makes it an analytical imperative not to adhere

dogma t i ca 11 y to any one line of division as the sole or most

4,, L crucial determinant of the political process.

Having established that state and society are not

constituted as internally coherent, unified entities, and that

neither has the definitive prerogative of constituting the other,

we proceed to a consideration of democracy as a significant

mediation. The democratic process provides us with the clue to

how and why state responses are layered and differentiated. It

illuminates a variety of .societal interests, some of which are

effective in keeping the state committed to its goals of social

t ran sf o rma t i on , while others are woefully ineffective in doing

so. The state's commitment to the project of development in the

Narmada Valley is clearly an example of the former, whi 1 e its

role in Kalahandi may be seen to reflect a certain ambivalence on

its part to the question of welfare. To speak of state capacity

in relation to state objectives is therefore a far more complex

exercise than is generally supposed. A zero-sum view of state

capability (Migdal,l988) has already been criticised for being

under-theorized, though richly possessed of empirical detail.

The question of state autonomy, with which it may be linked,

suffers from the converse : a surfeit of theorization, and n 00

little empirical specificity. Here, it is suggested that both

these concepts of state capability and autonomy require

greater specification to be effective in explanation. We need to

know not only what the state possesses the capability to

accomplish, but also what it possesses the capability to not do.

Likewise, we need to identify not only the interests of which the

state is not autonomous - relatively or otherwise but also

those of which it manifestly enjoys autonomy. The agenda-setting

process of the state, as also its success/failure in

accomplishing its stated objectives, can only be revealed by

defining each of these concepts both positively and negatively.

Turning once again to our case-study materials, we observe

that the lack of a substantive commitment to welfarist goals (in

Kalahandi) reflects the autonomy of the state from marginalized

groups, e.g., landless tribals, who are politically unorganized

and unrepresented in any but the most formal sense. It is hardly

surprising, then, that the state manifests a capacity to evade

the problem of structural poverty, while providing relief and

development funds which can buy political quiescence and are not

without advantage for dominant local interests.

The Shah Bano case shows state collusion with the stronger,

and more politically articulate, interest within the Muslim

community, that of the male clergy. When the state acts so as to

reinforce patriarchy, it not only undermines gender claims to

equal rights but also the need of Muslim women divorcees for

economic security. Its capacity to renege on the goal of creating

a secular society is assisted by its autonomy of the affected

interests (viz., Muslim women divorcees), and also expresses its

beholdenness

community.

to the powerful political 1 eadership of the

In relation to the Narmada Valley Projects, we have noted

that the state remains enthusiastically committed to its

developmental goals despite a multiplicity of deterrents,

including the withdrawal of foreign assistance; the strictures of

the World Bank on the rehabilitation of displaced persons; the

controversial nature of the ecological and social consequences of

-i.; ,s the project; and, above all, its enormous cost. State capability

to push ahead despite these is clearly a reflection of the

ineffectualitY of short changed interests.

Thus, in Ka•lahandi, the state's autonomy from the

marginalized classes enables it to renege on its avowed goal of

providing welfare; in the Shah Bano case, its political

dependence on the Muslim community leadership renders it too weak

to defend the secular project, much less the cause of women's

rights; while in the Narmada Valley, its lack of autonomy impels

it to act so as to subserve powerful political and commercial

interests. Thus the capacity to not implement goals, as much as

t o imp 1 em en t

absence.

them, is a function of both autonomy and its

The distortions of democracy further facilitate the state's

capacity to effect or not effect goals of social transformation.

As we have noted earlier, these distortions may be the outcome of

state or societal factors, or even both. The state contributes

to the undermining of democracy not only through the

concentration of power in government, but also through the

manipulation

1 egis 1 at u res .

of democratic institutions from elections t 0

Econ ami c and social inequalities, often

overlapping, also find expression in distortions of democratic

practice, providing for the inordinate representativeness of some

as opposed to others.

Democratic institutions thus play the role of filters,

providing restricted access to the state. This is an auxiliary

and adjunctive role, for it is the salience of the groups in

question that is expressed through the democratic process which

·1 . ' i

proves to be extremely serviceable for some interests, and closed

to others. Organized interests find voice, while the politically

unorganized poor have to be mobilized to extra-institutional

protest (as in the Narmada Valley), or else do not protest at all

(as in Kalahandi).

There is, thus, paralleling the unorganized sector in the

econ amy

workforce,

which, it has been suggested, stands at

and suffers from welfare and employment

90% of the

insecurity

(Rudolph and Rudolph, 1987 21,370) -what may be described as

an unorganized sector in the Indian polity. Organized interests,

even of the disadvantaged (such as religious minorities, OBCs,

Dalits, etc. ) enjoy some voice, if only at election time when

they are assiduously courted as convenient preaggregated stocks

of valuable political currency (or 'vote banks' in everyday

parlance). Tribals, on the other hand, have largely subsisted on

the rna rg ins of the polity, and have not forged a political

identity in the same way as these other groups. Despite its

size, this unorganized sect or of the polity is exceedingly

vulnerable, and the distortions of the democratic process may

well camp el it to express its claims imitatively in the

vocabulary of group rights. Women, particularly those belonging

t 0 the poorer classes, are victims of similar political

disablement.

A 11 these cases exemplify a fundamental shortcoming of

Indian democracy : its inauthenticity and unrepresentativeness.

Despite the clamour of celebration that attends every election

ritual, and the tributes paid to the vibrancy and resilience of

Indian democracy, there is cause for concern. Intermediaries are

"' ' ·t '; ,_)

crucial to this democracy, not just as brokers of votes, but also

t 0 represent the needs of the vulnerable. That the hungry of

Kalahandi or Muslim women divorcees did not represent their own

cases is not accidental. That it took a group of middle-class

activists to energise the movement against the Sardar Sarovar Dam

in the Narmada Valley is also not surprising. Conditions for

democracy - even of the formal, procedural kind -have not been

consolidated, enabling the state to deviate unchallenged from its

own avowed purposes and projects. Thus, when the state

compromises secular principles and denies its Muslim female

citizens equal rights; when i t answers challenges to its

development strategy by resorting to arrogant technocratic

arguments; and when it pays only token attention to the demands

of we 1 fare , i t becomes clear that the conditions of democracy

have to be created in civi 1 society, not just in the state, and

that these are the very requirements for the achievement of a

more substantive conception of democracy.

The ambivalent and even contradictory responses of the state

to these claims suggests that it is not one or another form of

democratic articulation that predisposes the state to act or

respond in a particular, predictable manner. The conventional

exercise of assessing the efficacy of democratic processes from

state response (or indeed its converse) is clearly an

inappropriate, and even sterile, way of approaching the question.

For it is the substantive content of the challenge - in terms of

which specific interests it threatens, not excluding reasons of

state that prejudices state policy. Even the state's own

project of social t ran sf o rma t i on , as expressed through its

.:i ') 0

developmentalist or welfarist goals, is self-evidently not above

bargaining and compromise. It is closed only to democratic

negotiation by vulnerable categories of citizens. In its

attentiveness to some interests, thus, the public agenda is

permissively open and vastly inclusionary, while towards other

less in f 1 u en t i a 1 ones it remains severe 1 y ex c 1 us i on a ry . It is

not simply the case that there is a gap between promise and

performance in the core areas of state activity, but rather that

the core projects of the state have been rendered differentially

open to negotiation. As with almost any other resource,

therefore, this is not a problem of too little or too much

democracy, but of its selective availability.

The ultimate test of a successful democracy, however, should

surely be its ability to determine or at 1 east in f 1 u en c e t he

agenda of the state. Disputation about the ends and goals of a

society is an intrinsic part of the democratic project. To

accord sacrosanctity to the agenda adopted by the state at a

given moment in its history is to Leviathanise democracy. As in

Hobbes, this anoints the principle of consent, only to withdraw

it after its first exercise (authorizing the sovereign to act on

behalf of the subjects) is completed. If electoral politics are

an inadequate guarantee of continuous consent, and further the

public agenda of a society cannot be perennially open to

negotiation, is there any pragmatic centre to be found between

these two extremes of democratic practice ? When the formal

conditions provided for participation by citizens in a democratic

polity are precluded from being realized - as they manifestly are

in all the cases examined in this study - that agenda must be

reopened to take account of the legitimate needs of the socially

vulnerable and politically marginalised. The needs addressed in

all three cases are fundamental expressed as needs, they call

for security and basic sustenance, for life itself. Expressed as

rights, they represent the right not to be hungry, the right to a

way of life of one's choice, and the right not to be rendered

destitute. Other forms of rights-claims by groups, such as the

demand for caste-based affirmative action or self-determination

on the basis of religion, speak to the state from a position of

strength. Couched as threats, they compel the state to garner

its energies to address these demands. The rights-claims

articulated in the context of this study, however, present no

serious threat to the state. They point, rather, to the failed

promise of 1947, to the violation and compromising of the rights

guaranteed in 1950 to evade those promises, and to the lack of

voice in the continuously profluent refashioning of the state's

agenda.