Will India soar or struggle in the coming years?

This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: Will India soar or struggle in the coming years?

Gideon Rachman
Hello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times. This week’s edition is about India, which recently celebrated the 75th anniversary of independence. And many believe that over the next 75 years, India is poised to emerge as a 21st century superpower. My guest this week is Ramachandra Guha, who’s often hailed as the most distinguished historian of modern India. He’s also a noted critic of the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. So, will India soar or struggle in the coming years? The 75th anniversary of Indian independence from the British Empire was marked with celebrations all over the country. In Delhi, Prime Minister Modi inspected the troops.

[Troops speaking in foreign language]

Gideon Rachman
In his Independence Day speech, Modi touched on many themes, including his hopes for a digital revolution in India.

[Narendra Modi speaking in foreign language]

Gideon Rachman
Modi’s backers often focus on the economic progress that the country has made under his leadership. His critics argue that democratic freedoms are being eroded and that India has become a much less tolerant place. Ram Guha’s book, India After Gandhi, is regarded as the standard modern history of the country. So I began our conversation by asking him to place the Modi era in historical perspective.

Ramachandra Guha
There are people who see Modi as a great redeemer of Hindu culture and Hindu nationhood. The others  will see him as a fascist. And the truth is, somewhere in between. I think, of course, it is the personality cult around him. Institutions are declining. I would say the country is going through, probably the third major crisis since independence. The first crisis being immediately after partition when we had to resettle refugees, forge a constitution, integrate the princely states, deal with famine. That’s the first crisis which we overcame, partly because of the sagacious leadership of people like Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar, the founders of the Republic. The second crisis was the Emergency, when Indira Gandhi sort of anticipated Modi by creating a personality cult around herself, by capturing a party, by having a blind media, subjugating the judiciary and of course, abrogating civil rights. So in my view, I’m not apocalyptic about India, but I’m worried about India. I think we are going through a major democratic and social crisis, partly because and this the last thing I’d say with regard to this question, one of the major differences between Indira Gandhi and Modi is that Modi is head of a majoritarian party. Indira Gandhi believed that India belong to everyone regardless of religion or language. So I said, I’m worried about my country.

Gideon Rachman
So there’s a lot to unpick there. Let’s start with the majoritarianism. As you say, I mean, the BJP, the party he leads, seems to be essentially a Hindu party. Really? There are no Muslim MPs in the BJP. How precarious do you think the situation is of the hundreds of millions of Muslims in India?

Ramachandra Guha
Again, you know, people talk in apocalyptic terms. They talk about genocide, ethnic cleansing. That’s not likely to happen. But low level persecution and harassment and stigmatisation on a daily level. So a Muslim couple wants to rent a flat. They can’t get it. If they apply for jobs, it’s likely that other people will get it above them, There is name-calling, dog whistles by leaders of the ruling party. Invisibility in the press, declining representation not just in Parliament, which you point out, but also the professional classes. So when I was younger, there were many more Muslims who were professors, lawyers, judges, leading doctors. Educated Muslims who have a chance often wanted to go abroad because, you know, they see what’s happening to their fellows. There is a steady demonisation and stigmatisation of Muslims, which is incremental, if not dramatic. We have to pull back from that. Speaking, as a citizen, I worry about what’s happening to Muslim citizens. But as a historian, I recognise we live in a neighbourhood which is dominated by majoritarian states. Pakistan and Bangladesh are Islamic majoritarian states. Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Bhutan are Buddhist majoritarian states. Maybe India under Modi wants to approximate this norm and become a Hindu majoritarian state.

Gideon Rachman
And in fact, they more or less say that, don’t they? And when they justified not extending refugee status to Muslims, they said, well, there are Muslim states, they can go.

Ramachandra Guha
Exactly.

Gideon Rachman
You’ve written biographies of Gandhi as well. How much is Modi repudiating actually the legacy of Gandhi or trying to create a different sort of India? And are his followers explicit about that?

Ramachandra Guha
So there’s a slight difference between Modi and his followers. Modi is a very intelligent and crafty man, and he knows that the world is looking at India. So the followers detest Gandhi because he wanted Muslims to have equal rights, because he preached non-violence. They see him as effeminate and, you know, not macho enough. Modi will extol those aspects of Gandhi that are sort of a non-controversial, like his emphasis on cleanliness, his preference for homespun cloth, his environmental sensibility. But on the key question of equal rights for Muslims, Modi will never mention Ghandi. Gandhi lived and died for Hindu-Muslim amity. I mean, it was clear after partition that India would not be a Hindu Pakistan, and that’s what he gave his life for. And that’s what his greatest fasts in his last months of his life were all about. So Modi only talks of the non-controversial and the bulk of his party actually suspect. Gandhi, dislike Gandhi. A significant section of the BJP admires Gandhi’s murderer Godse. I mean, essentially, the ruling party in India broadly repudiates the greatest Indian of the 20th century.

Gideon Rachman
And somebody said to me that the way that Modi deals with this is that he doesn’t, as they put it, he doesn’t say the worst stuff himself. He just poses for selfies with the people who do. In other words, he’s sort of associated with people. He doesn’t repudiate.

Ramachandra Guha
Exactly. Exactly.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah. You’ve written, I think, that India is now in your view a 30 per cent democracy. I know many Modi supporters would be outraged by that, that say, look, our man is freely elected, people like you can speak out, we have independent courts. So how do you justify this statement?

Ramachandra Guha
So you know, there’s a great personality cult around Modi. I’ve been thinking a lot about personality cults in democracies or partial democracies such as Brazil or Turkey or Hungary or America or my country. And how does a personality cult undermine every step of democracy? First, by the leader capturing the party. So there’s no dissent in the party at all. Then by capturing the media. Today there’s a news report where a businessman very close to Modi, Adani, wants to take over India’s last independent TV channel NDTV. So then you capture the media. Then also the courts. I mean, a Supreme Court judge no less, has called Modi a visionary global leader and the courts have been extremely timid in giving any judgements against the state. Then the civil service, the tax authority. So if you look at how state governments are brought down in many states of India, it’s by the central governments, by tax authorities harassing opposition legislators. So these institutions, different kinds of institutions, have been captured or suborned to serve this personality cult of Modi and the growing power of the BJP. So democratic institutions are in peril. I mean, Boris Johnson may have wanted to be a a Modi or a Trump, but he could not capture the press. He could not capture his party. He could not, he had to face daily questions in Parliament which Modi doesn’t. So I think our democratic institutions are seriously in peril.

Gideon Rachman
And how do you see it developing? I mean, is this a moving story? In other words, things have got worse and are likely to get even worse.

Ramachandra Guha
One can never tell about India because every prediction about India has failed. In the early days of the Indian Republic, we were told we would face mass scarcity, we would become a military dictatorship, we’d Balkanise. The 1990s and 2000s after an economic surge and the success of our software and pharmaceutical industry, we were told, you guys are going to become a superpower. I hesitate to make any predictions about my country except to say that in my view as a historian, this is the third major crisis of the republic. It could go anywhere, they are countervailing forces, for example, of the region I live in, South India. Only one of the five major states in southern India is under the BJP, and the BJP may lose there in the next elections. They are pockets of freedom. There is dissent. There’s grave unemployment and inflation, which could give a handle to the opposition. And our democratic traditions are somewhat more robust than, shall we say, Turkey or Hungary or Brazil. So they could rediscover themselves. So it’s an open question where we are going.

Gideon Rachman
Again, you know, the Modi people would say, well, you know, the very fact that you can speak like this to me, that you live in India tells you that India is a democracy. There is still dissent and so on. On the other hand, you’re under pressure. I mean, you were briefly arrested.

Ramachandra Guha
You know, I have also been denied jobs. I was appointed to a university in Ahmedabad, and a leading minister very close to Modi actually called the chancellor of the university and said withdraw the appointment, which is what happened. But I am somewhat protected because I have an international reputation, who can come and speak to the FT. Writers in Indian languages are harassed, persecuted, arrested. There are many journalists in jail simply because they’re speaking the truth. On the world press freedom index, we have dropped from 140, which is low enough, to 150. And as I said, our major media houses are systematically crumbling under the onslaught of state pressure. I’ll give you one last example. When the Covid pandemic happened, the second wave exacted a huge toll in northern India and a leading Hindi newspaper called Dainik Bhaskar printed photographs of the bodies that were uncremated on the banks of the Ganga. The next day their offices were raided and they’ve been silent ever since about the government. So I think the Modi government can point to me or one or two other people writing in English and say, look at what they’re saying, but look at everyday life on the ground for not just regular reporters and journalists, but for websites, media houses and the harassment they face. So I think, you know, we are not as bad as we were through the Emergency, when all democratic rights were abrogated. I was a college student then. So I remember it vividly. But on that side, when it comes to freedoms, we are slightly better off than when we were in the Emergency. But when it comes to the persecution of our largest minority, we are much worse off.

Gideon Rachman
Modi’s defenders again, to put their case to, you know, I remember speaking to Indian government ministers and putting some of the criticisms that you’ve made to them. And they said, well, you guys in the west or even Indian liberals just need to kind of get over this because Modi is enormously popular and he’s popular for a reason, that he’s delivered for ordinary Indian people, both pride, but also they point to certain achievements such as the transformation of the welfare system so that people get money directly, it’s not stolen and that kind of thing. So can he legitimately say, well, for, you know, these concerns are relatively abstract, whereas he’s delivered a real benefit.

Ramachandra Guha
So here he has delivered SOPs. So it is true, partly because of India’s extremely robust digital ecosystem, which is actually set in motion by the Congress under Manmohan Singh and under Nandan Nilekani, who worked with that regime and developed this unique identity programme, biometric programme. So Modi’s government has actually improved welfare delivery, but they’ve done nothing about the difficult issues: education, health, employment. You know, which is what really leads to sustained economic growth. Here is one last example. One of the state governments that has done excellent work in education and health is the government of Delhi, run by the Aam Aadmi party. The New York Times did a story on their work, and the next day the state’s Education Minister was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation. So this kind of extraordinary concentration of power, this envy and jealousy about other parties, just harassment of anyone else who comes up. These are classic manifestations of personality cult. I mean, even within his party, it’s all Modi. Ideologically, the BJP actually opposed cults of personality because they had experienced Indira Gandhi’s cult of personality. But now there’s the cult of Modi, there’s never been a cult like that in a democratic country as large as India. And as we know from history, personality cults end badly for the country that nurtures them. So he may be popular, but, you know, Mao was popular, Trump was popular, Orbán is popular. And look what that excessive popularity has done to the democratic institutions and indeed the economic prospects of those countries.

Gideon Rachman
So do you think he’s there for the long term? I mean, I’ve heard some people say, well, he’s now, you know, how old is he now?

Ramachandra Guha
Early 70s...

Gideon Rachman
He’s only 70, you know. It’s actually a similar sort of age to Xi Jinping, similar sort of age to Putin. Those two clearly want to rule forever. Do you think that is Modi’s ambition?

Ramachandra Guha
He would want a third term. So I think the person he is deeply envious of is Jawaharlal Nehru, who won three elections, who had a good international reputation. He wants to win a third term. At the moment it looks likely that he wins a third term. But what the long-term consequences are not clear. For example, the Congress Party was a decentralised democratic party. Indira Gandhi made it into a cult about herself and destroyed the party in the long run. Trump may do the same thing to the Republicans and Modi may do the same thing to the BJP. So his personal success will not just be at the cost of our democratic institutions, our pluralistic society, but possibly the future of his own party itself.

Gideon Rachman
And also, it does affect the global atmosphere. I mean, India is now, along with China, one of the two most populous countries in the world, 1.4 billion people. But how far do you think what’s happening is India, in India, do you feel that it’s part of a kind of global trend? You’ve also mentioned Boris Johnson , Trump, Orban, etc.

Ramachandra Guha
It is. And you’ve written about it and it’s certainly part of a global trend. I think maybe Britain and Germany are two of the few countries that have resisted it in their politics and in their culture. I’d also say one thing to qualify the criticisms I made of Modi, that is in most states of India, there are personality cults. So the chief minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, who opposes Modi politically, also has destroyed the press and democratic institutions in her state. The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Jagan Reddy of Tamil Nadu, of Kerala, of Uttar Pradesh, our largest state, which is run by a man Adityanath who does the same. So the centralisation of power, this glorification of the leader, this desperate desire to want personal praise all the time from the press, from the officials, from the judges is actually ubiquitous in India, and that is perhaps a cultural failing in our society.

Gideon Rachman
But as you said, there are plenty of people who are willing to praise it, but some of it may be out of fear or hopeful preference. But on my sense is, is that many people in the Indian middle class do buy into Modi’s narrative about the resurgent India, the India that will be one of the superpowers of the 21st century...

Ramachandra Guha
There is a subliminal religious element. They think Hindus are at last recovering their culture, pride and civilizational of greatness. They were suppressed by the Mughals, then by the British. And now Modi is going to make Hindus rule the world. But this is utter fantasy, Gideon. And if you look at our position on every possible global index, it’s declining. If you look at the state of our health system, our education system, if you look at the attacks on our best public universities, we are not doing very well. If Indians look at what is happening around us, I think they should be worried.

Gideon Rachman
Okay, last push back then. I guess a lot of people would point to the economy and say, yes, there’s high unemployment and so on. But India is now, you know, in the top five economies in the world just by sheer numbers. And the fact that you have quite a dynamic private sector, some real global companies. India is gonna be a big player because it’s a huge economy.

Ramachandra Guha
Well, it’s true that there are some successes, without question. But there’s also an increasing disparity. There’s crony capitalism. I mean, if you look at two industrialists, Ambani and Adani and their growth under Modi. I mean, we are approaching the Russian oligarch system. Extraordinary concentration of wealth in a few companies. There is no level playing field, even for Indian industry. There’s protectionism, which to my mind we should be worried about. You know, there’s inward shuting off of trade. We didn’t join a major trade partnership involving East and Southeast Asian nations, which I think would have been in our best interest. There’s grave unemployment. Those who are in the workforce are not skilled because our education system is in shambles. So if we just look at one number, we are large, we are growing. You say five per cent, six per cent growth. It’s actually hides a multitude of sins.

Gideon Rachman
Last question then, India’s international position. Obviously, we’re in an increasingly polarised situation between the US and China. We now have the Ukraine war where suddenly in the west people are upset that India has been sort of pretty silent on the subject. How do you see Modi negotiating all this?

Ramachandra Guha
So I think Modi had been very lucky because he’s come to power at a time of great estrangement between the United States and China. So whatever the human rights abuses in India, the Biden administration is not going to criticise him. So I think that’s partly his political good fortune. On Ukraine, you see, Gideon, we were born out of an anti-colonial struggle. That’s why we were the first and the most consistent supporters of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. We told the Americans not to invade Vietnam, you know. So we come from that kind of tradition. So it would be consistent with that tradition for us to gently, quietly chastise Russians over the invasion of Ukraine, which is an act of imperialist aggression. And also, I think it would bolster our position in the West. I think it would make us a much more credible player, if you want, for example, a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, if we take those kinds of stances. But sadly, we haven’t.

Gideon Rachman
I think some of them will say, well actually, you know, it is all the former imperial countries, the Britons, the Frances that are opposed to Russia. Russia was never, in their view, a colonial power because it didn’t colonise. I mean, it colonised its immediate neighbourhood, but...

Ramachandra Guha
But it invaded Afghanistan, I think, in my view, the invasion of, American invasion of Vietnam was morally wrong. The American invasion of Iraq was not just morally wrong, but politically disastrous. And to be consistent, a country like India, you know, which got its freedom under people like Gandhi and Nehru, should oppose imperialism everywhere. You know Indira Gandhi in the 1960s criticised the American invasion of Vietnam and she took a great risk because the Americans were supplying us wheat to tide over food scarcities. You know, that’s a position of principle and we could do it. We don’t have to do it polemically. We can do it gently, but we can tell the Russians we don’t really approve. I think that would be not just to our benefit, it would be to the benefit of the whole world.

Gideon Rachman
And lastly then, so obviously what Modi is doing is partly manoeuvring. But what do you think he and the people around him actually think of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ramachandra Guha
Well there’s one theory that because we can avail of Russian oil that will help the Modi government tackle inflation, which is their greatest political worry, because elections in India are generally lost on the inflation rate, not necessarily employment, but inflation because that hurts the ordinary person and their daily lifestyle. So I think that’s part of the pragmatic calculation that we may need Russian oil to keep because we are a massive importer of oil, you know, and of energy generally. So I don’t know what the calculations are. It could be Modi is also inexperienced in international affairs. I mean, compared to, say, Manmohan Singh, who had served overseas and understood the complexities of global geopolitics much better. And then he also understood economics much better than Modi did, for example. But I can’t see what the compulsions are, but I’m disappointed that we have tacitly our government, my government had tacitly taken the side of the Russians.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Gideon Rachman
That was Professor Ramachandra Guha and in this edition of the Rahman Review. Thanks for listening and please join me again next week.

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