What Anna Hazare’s Movement and India’s New Middle Classes Say about Each Other.

 

 Vinay Sitapati

    

 On 5 April 2011, a 73-year-old man in central Delhi stopped eating. The man in question was Kisan Baburao Hazare, and he was protesting the Congress-led central government’s lacka­daisical attempts to punish those guilty of large-scale corruption. 

1. His specific demand was that “civil society” should have a say in drafting a stringent anti-corruption law, the Lokpal Bill. The government draft was an eyewash, he claimed; outside partici­pation was the only way to ensure an anti-corruption law with any teeth. Hazare, “Anna” to his followers, was by no means the only man on a hunger strike there. But he was onto something. While the government was drowning in a flood of corruption scandals – most prominently, the 2G spectrum allocation controversy and the Commonwealth Games fiasco – Anna Hazare’s perfectly timed protest managed to ride the wave. A throng of civic activists, movie stars, and well-heeled supporters from the urban middle classes took his side.2 Though estimates of its popularity are hard to gauge, it is fair to say that the Anna Hazare movement spread beyond Delhi and to the rest of urban India, which is why the Congress Party soon capitulated. On 8 April the govern­ment agreed that five members, chosen by Anna Hazare, would be part of the Lokpal  Bill drafting committee.

 Neither Anna Hazare’s methods nor the cause were particularly original. Yoga guru Baba Ramdev had previously fasted on the corruption issue; he fasted again soon after Anna Hazare’s fast ended. The move to enact an effective anti-corruption bill also has an old genesis. In the 1960s itself, the idea of the Lokpal was suggested by the first Administrative Reforms Commission. Even before Anna Hazare’s fast, Aruna Roy and other civil society members had been  involved in drafting an anti-corruption law. Besides, as of this essay’s writing, the gains from Anna Hazare’s fast are in peril, with sharp disagreements between government and “civil society” represent­atives on the drafting committee threat­ening to imperil consensus over a Bill. Yet, the fact that the movement got even this far needs explaining.

Who did the Anna Hazare movement

 consist of? The five civil society members on the drafting committee are lawyers Prashant Bhusan and Shanti Bhushan (the latter a former union law minister), (retired) Supreme Court judge and current Lokayukta of Karnataka Santosh Hegde, Right to Information (RTI) activist Arvind Kejri­wal, along with Gandhian Anna Hazare himself. All are middle class icons. Other civic activists include former police officer Kiran Bedi, and religious and spiritual leaders Swami Agnivesh, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Baba Ramdev. The foot-soldiers

 of the Anna Hazare movement were educated and urbane. The methods used – Twitter updates, SMS campaigns, candlelight vigils and media management – also suggest that Hazare was able to fire the idealism of 21st century India’s burgeoning middle class.

The Indian middle class is hardly mono­lithic  its economic interests hardly homogeneous. A much cited study put the mid­dle class at 50 million people, roughly 5% of the population.3 More expansive defini­tions show that 62% of all Indian house­holds are middle class. If income is a fickle way of measuring the middle class, focus­ing on middle class “values” can also be treacherous territory. An estimate using higher education as a yardstick made by the political scientist, Devesh Kapur, was that 30 million households, one-eighth of the total population, were middle class in 2010 (Kapur 2010: 147). Another “value”-based definition, by sociologist Andre Beteille, focuses on occupation status and non-manual work (Beteille 2002: 76). From the many studies on the subject, it is possible to tentatively conclude that the Indian middle class comes from varied economic backgrounds, constitutes a relatively small percentage of the population, and is slightly easier to define in terms of “values .

This heterogeneity in income and values results in a variety of intellectual strands within the middle class. Differing middle class activisms thus come with their own visions, constituencies, and methods. The Narmada Bachao Andolan, Justice for Jessica campaign, and PIL activism are all middle class-driven. Yet they differ radi­cally from each other. What was unique about the Anna Hazare movement was that diverse middle class activisms were able to craft a campaign that appealed to all their interests.

This essay presents a typology of India’s four middle class intellectual strands of political activism (Figure 1). Three of them – what I call Gandhigiri, India Shining, and Legal Activism – broadly endorsed the Anna Hazare movement, even if some quibbled over details in the draft law (Table 1). A fourth middle class strand – the Independ­ent Left – decried Hazare; they were lone dissenters within the middle classes. This by no means suggests that theirs was the only critique; but other criticisms of the bill were by lone intellectuals, not repre­sentative of a middle class strand.               

                   

A few caveats: first, this is less a story about class, more an intellectual history. For those unsure of the middle class origins of these strands, the essay still stands – as delineating four intellectual strands of civil society engagement in politics. Second, this essay employs what German social theorist Max Weber called an “Ideal Type”. The point is not that every category is hermetically sealed and all-explaining, but that it is analytically useful. This essay is also limited to political activism of the middle class variety, making no claim to the other mobilisations – dalit movements, to give the most obvious example. I hope that an analysis of middle class intellectual strands as well as the Anna Hazare move­ment creates a virtuous cycle in which the one helps shed light on the other.

     Legal Activism

              

       Two members of the Lokpal drafting com­mittee are the lawyers Prashant Bhushan and his father Shanti Bhushan; a third is former Supreme Court judgTe Santosh Hegde. It is also telling that nationwide revulsion against corruption has been converted into legal text, with debates around clauses and sections. When Anna Hazare was accused of nepotism for appointing a father-son duo, he argued that “At present, the committee needs [legal] experts who can draft a stronger bill”.4 This legal tinge to middle class political engagement first came about in the after­math of the 1975-77 Emergency. It involved middle class litigants and judges who reinterpreted the Constitution to increase the number of those who could access the courts, the grounds on which they could claim constitutional protection against the State, and the

range of remedies available to the courts. I term this “Legal Activism”. That movement, which begun in the early 1980s has now expanded to a point where almost all political questions – the Ayodhya dispute, the 2G spectrum scam, or the appointment of the central vigilance com­missioner (CVC) – find their way to the

Supreme Court.

             The Emergency is crucial to under­standing Legal Activism and the person­alities of the three lawyers on the Lokpal Bill drafting committee. The run-up to the Emergency was a prolonged tussle between the judiciary and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The prime minister responded to unfavourable court verdicts by superseding

        judges she did not like. The first superses­sion occurred a day after a politically un­favourable judgment on land reform and judicial review.5 Indira Gandhi superseded the three judges who decided against the State, to appoint a judge who had decided in her favour.6 One of the judges superseded was Justice K S Hegde, father of Santosh Hegde. On 25 June 1975, Indira Gandhi declared an Emergency and suspended constitutional liberties. From the excesses that followed, some within India’s Inde­pendent Left (described later on) learnt that the Indian state must be whittled down. India’s Legal Activists drew the opposite lesson: that a powerful Supreme Court and an elaborate rights infrastructure was the best guarantor against state excess. No one exemplifies this more than Shanti Bhushan. In 1975, Indira Gandhi’s election was struck down by the Allahabad High Court. In his book The Case That Shook India, Lokpal drafting committee member Prashant Bhushan makes the now un­controversial point that this was the casus belli for her declaring the Emergency (Bhushan 1978). The lawyer who argued the case against Indira Gandhi was father Shanti Bhushan. Soon after the Janata government took power in 1977, it was determined to undo the effects of Indira Gandhi’s judicial squelching. They chose Shanti Bhushan as their law minister, and it was in this capacity that he shepherded the annulment of the 42nd amendment and passed the 44th amendment, providing protection to the judiciary and the bed­rock for the activism that was to follow (Rudolph and Rudolph 1981: 3).

Soon after the Janata Party’s reversal of Indira Gandhi’s attempt to squelch judicial activism came two legal innovations. The first was the creation of public interest liti­gation (PIL) as a procedural tool. Any per­son could now file a writ petition on behalf of a disadvantaged group, alleging the violation of fundamental rights by the State. This expanded the power of activists, often prodded by a sympathetic judiciary. The second way was substantive: an expansive interpretation of fundamental rights created a host of “socio-economic” rights that are not explicitly stated in the Constitution. For a sense of how detailed they were: the innovations included the right of pavement dwellers to shelter, the right to clean air, and more recently the right to education – rights that are not explicitly stated as fundamental.

To this arsenal that Legal Activists used to expand their power, the 2000s has given them another. The RTI Act, 2005 provides citizens with the ability to demand infor­mation from the State. Arvind Kejriwal, one of the members of the Lokpal drafting committee, is a prominent RTI activist. In just one year, 2008, the NGO that he runs, Parivartan, analysed 52,000 queries sent under the RTI Act.7

Middle class judicial activism extends beyond class interests. The socio-economic rights of the 1980s and 1990s were aimed at the marginalised. Besides, an array of left activists have built on Legal Activism. One such was the lawyer and former president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, K G Kannabiran. He often defended the legal rights of individuals charged with crimes associated with Naxalism. When he met this author in 2005, he narrated an incident in the Andhra Pradesh High Court. He was defending two charged Naxalites in court, and the judge asked him: “Mr Kannabiran, you cite these constitu­tional provisions in your client’s defence. Yet your clients themselves don’t believe in the Constitution. Is that not hypocrisy?” “Your Honour”, Kannabiran replied, “the Constitution is a testament to our values, not theirs; the Constitution does not limit its majesty to only believers. It applies to all.”

Legal Activists bring a unique skill to the Lokpal Bill drafting process: they have done it before. To give just one example, in 1993, after sustained activist litigation, the Supreme Court expanded the phrase “right to life” in Article 21 to include free and compulsory education for all children below 14.8 The financial cost was estimated at between Rs 54,000 crore and 73,000 crore per year for six years (Sitapati 2009). Yet, in 2010, the central government went ahead with The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2010, claiming that it was to further the Supreme Court’s directive.9

Legal Activists are broadly in favour of the Anna Hazare movement, even if they critique the substance of the movement’s version of the Bill and the hysteria of the candlelighters. Legal Activists have little sympathy for elected representatives, seeing the Supreme Court as their way to pass legislation on the sly. In this, they share contempt for elected institutions with India Shining (and even the Independent Left). What many Legal Activists like about the Jan Lokpal Bill is that it converts a popular crusade against corruption into legislation with clauses and sub-clauses which they can debate over. This is also the origin of the biggest criticism that Legal Activists have against the Bill – shoddy drafting, the poor display of legal skill.10 It is a criticism mirrored by The Hindu, whose editorials valued the movement but criticised the “angularities of the civil society version” of the Bill.11 Yet these specific criticisms in no way take away from their broad support for a legal solution to the malaise of corruption. The success of the Lokpal Bill is critically contingent on the Legal Activists involved. India Shining The Bharatiya Janata Party’s catchphrase may have misfired in the 2004 general elections (Pati 2004: 2082-83), but “India Shining” captures a mood and a class that is undeniably true. The birth of India Shining as a middle class movement is closely linked to the opening of the Indian economy, first in the early 1980s when curbs on internal capital were reduced and then in 1991 when foreign capital was allowed to enter India.12 I term this new Indian-middle class, the most prominent foot soldiers of the Anna Hazare movement, “India Shining”. Unlike the BJP’s all-encompassing phrase, India Shining – as used here – believes that corporate India is shining and some of that shine can rub off on India’s decaying state.

The corporate and privately-employed members of India Shining are better under­stood by contrasting it with its predecessor, the Nehruvian middle class. The Nehruvian middle class grew around the Indian state, placed a high premium on education, and was conspicuously austere in lifestyle. India Shining has thrived outside of the State, in the private enclaves of India Inc. A 2005-06 study found that of India’s current middle class, 56-62% is privately employed (Sridharan 2008: 2). Unlike its frugal pred­ecessor, India Shining is conspicuously con­sumptive (Fernandes and Heller 2006: 3), celebrating material wealth and success. Paradoxically for a group so suspicious of the State, India Shining wears its national identity on its sleeve. If the icon for the Nehruvian middle class was the IAS officer,

India Shining icons are Indian companies (Tata, Infosys, Wipro), manned by Indianeducated professionals, that have thrived post-1990. Their simple argument is that if Indians can succeed in building top quality companies, why cannot they rebuild India’s moribund state? India Shining virulently dislikes the political class. This dislike has three causes. The first is governance. India Shining values

clean roads, regular electricity, and law and order – something that is not the forte of

the world’s largest democracy. The second cause is that ever since the silent revolution in which subaltern castes captured state power in the 1960s in south India and the 1980s in north India (Jaffrelot 2002), India Shining has felt disenfranchised from the State. Third, given the widespread inequality in the distribution of economic benefits post-liberalisation, political entrepreneurs have made it a point to play up urban India vs rural Bharat. The result is that “India”looks outside politics to succeed.Much is written about the middle class capture of Indian institutions, whether the media (Fernandes and Heller 2006: 3),Bollywood or even foreign policy (Jaffrelot 2009). There is some truth to this. A good place to gauge what India Shining is thinking at any given point is through the pages of The Times of India. Since the world’s largest English-language daily prides itself in its commercial acumen, it is nimbly in sync with the aspirations of India Shining. The Times of India is also the mirror to the way mainstream English-language newspapers are headed. Whether it is the campaign to bring “Justice for Jessica” or “India against Corruption” exemplified by the Anna Hazare movement, India’s media and film industry increasingly mirror the anxieties of India Shining. The attraction of the Jan Lokpal Bill to India Shining is obvious. India Shining prizes efficiency. Not for them is the abstraction of a politics of dignity. The State is about the delivery of of goods, something which corruption eats at. Since all of India Shining pays income tax, they see corruption as contractual violation, the theft their money. India Shining is also deaf to the two biggest criticisms of the Bill. Since they do not see politicians as legitimate to begin with, the unrepresentative nature ofthe Anna Hazare movement does not trouble them. They are also not worried by an all-powerful Lokpal. Critics see in this a troubling acquiescence in authoritarianism that harks back to middle class support for the Emergency (Vanaik 2002). India Shining is the least self-reflective of all middle class strands. The other three  are aware of their privileged origins and claim to speak for a larger group. But India Shining simply assumes that its interests are shared by all Indians. What they lack in subtlety, India Shining makes up with energy. Many corporate executives have devoted considerable time to the movement. A telecom company volunteered to set up a service in which if a mobile user called a toll-free number, she would then receive free alerts on the movement.13 From mustering up the energy to gather around India Gate to organising money and Facebook pages, the flaws and flamboyance of the Anna Hazare movement presents a psycho-portrait of India’s new middle class: India Shining. Gandhigiri The public face of the movement, Anna Hazare, describes himself as a Gandhian.His social movement, centred in Ralegaon Gandhi’s Phoenix farm and Sabarmati ashram. Many of his campaigns, against alcoholism or untouchability, make the Gandhian connect between social reform and political emancipation. He preaches non-violence, is comfortable with religious idioms (a portrait of Bharat Mata hung behind him while he fasted for the Jan  Lokpal Bill),14 and makes personal probity the centrepiece of the campaign. Yet, while the movement claims Gandhi’s morals and employs his methods, its political vision is as far as can be from Gandhi himself. Ironically, this is what makes it so successful in 21st century India. Understanding this neo- Gandhian activism, “Gandhigiri” is key to understanding the Anna Hazare movement. Two makers of modern India were quick to distance themselves from Gandhi’s idea of a state. As has been well chronicled,Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision of a modern, centralised, powerful Indian state that could bring about both economic prosperity as

well as social justice was anathema to Gandhi’s union of village republics. Gandhi, an early critic of modernity, was disillusioned with the violence and illegitimacy of the State. Independent India is a testament to exactly the reverse impulse: of a centralised state driving large development projects in the name of the greater common good. The other maker of modern India deeply critical of Gandhi was B R Ambedkar, and his criticism was on substance as well as on methods. Ambedkar saw the village as a “cesspool, a den of ignorance, narrowmindedness,

and communalism”, viewing modernity with individual rights as the

sole guarantee of social justice in India. In this, he agreed with Nehru. Ambedkar was also critical of Gandhian methods, arguing in his famous “Grammar of Anarchy” speech before the Constituent Assembly in 1949 that: “...we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha... where constitutional methods

are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy...” (Ambedkar 1949). Yet, Gandhian activism survives at a tangent to mainstream politics in India. To give but the most prominent examples, Vinoba Bhave’s bhoodan movement in the early 1950s, in which owners donated their property to the landless, employed Gandhian methods for land reform. Narmada Bachao Andolan founder Medha Patkar self-identifies as a Gandhian, and both her vision against development and methods of nonviolent protest evoke Gandhian satyagraha. If these movements are any indication, middle class Gandhigiri sees reform as being less about changing structure, more about changing hearts and minds. As historian Ramachandra Guha (2001) put it: “Inside every thinking Indian, there is a Marxist and Gandhian struggling for supremacy”. Since Gandhigiri is motivated by a moral vision, it focuses on the social space rather than the political. Gandhigiri is also attuned to rural transformation. As the social  psychologist Ashis Nandy (2001) argues, the need to re-engage with his mythic rural roots constitutes the Indian’s unsure journey to urban modernity. This ideal type précis argues that Gandhian activism works outside the State, is less interested in corruption, and sees little in common with India’s rising new middle class. Yet, the Anna Hazare movement  does precisely the opposite. I argue that this represents a new kind of Gandhian movement, in which Gandhian techniques (though not ideology) are used to represent urban interests. This is best captured in

the “Gandhigiri” made popular by the film Lage Raho Munnabhai. It combines Gandhi’s moral certitude with his public tactics, leaving out his larger political vision. To the extent the Anna Hazare and his movement are Gandhian, this is how they must

be understood. What makes Gandhigiri so powerful in 21st century India is its compatibility with the agendas of India Shining. In return for the legitimacy and articulation India Shining gets, it provides the foot soldiers and the finances that Gandhians have lacked. It also enables an urban middle class anxiety to gain rural sympathy, in much the same way Mohandas Gandhi converted the elitist Indian National Congress into a peasant-supported mass movement in the 1920s (Chatterjee 1986: 85-131). Independent Left To these three middle class intellectual

strands that support the Anna Hazare movement, a dissenting strand must be

mentioned. This is the Independent Left – unaffiliated with any party – which arose

from party Marxism but is now critical of both its theory and practice. Unlike the

Communist Party of India (Marxist), which has given qualified support to Anna Hazare, categorising the Independent Left is difficult because there is considerable heterogeneity with the strand. At considerable risk of simplification, two variants can be identified, each resting uneasily with the other.The primary one is academic, found in humanities departments in India and the United States.15 The other variant are the

civil libertarians on the left: the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), for instance. As widely as they differ on the role of violence and democracy, both variants unite in their suspicion of the State, sympathy for a variety of “consciousness’’ other than class, and sharp criticism of party Marxism. The growth of the Independent Left is linked to the crisis with the Indian Left, culminating in the Emergency. The Emergency destroyed any remnants, in the middle class mind, of the Nehruvian utopia of a modern developmental state – a moment so wonderfully captured by the film Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi. As the political scientist

Rajni Kothari (1984: 216-24) writes, the early 1980s thus saw a period of sustained disillusionment with Indian democracy. If the gaps in classical Marxism were exposed

in the 1970s by the horrors of the Emergency, changing strands in electoral politics also played a role. This period saw the emergence of Other Backward Classes (OBC)

and dalit political movements (Heller 2000: 484-519), in addition to the movement

of Muslims away from the Congress. Marxist thought found it hard to account

for why the marginalised chose to mobilise around identities other than class.

Another reason for the growing popularity of the Independent Left in the middle

class imagination is the emergence of post-structuralist thought within south

Asian studies in the US. Sociologist Vivek Chibber (2006: 378-83) argues that this in

turn influenced the Indian academy. The Independent Left, in both their

original European as well as Indian avatar, are exclusively of the urban, educated, middle classes. In the 1970s, a sizeable middle class attitude in India was Marxist.Today, few in the middle class preach or practise orthodox Marxism. The IndependentLeft, untainted by the compromises of electoral politics and catering moredirectly to contemporary middle class anxieties, is more attractiveAmidst a middle class that vocally supports the Anna Hazare movement, theIndependent Left is a lone voice of dissent.Their first criticism of Anna Hazare’sversion of the Bill is that vesting so muchpolice power in the Lokpal risks misuse.Second, some within the Independent Lef tare suspicious of any activism against

corruption as an attempt to correct stateinefficienciesinstead of looking beyondit. Third, the Independent Left hates India Shining as the selfish ill-informed utterances of a ruthless bourgeoisie. Lighting candles at India Gate is the very picture of glib middle class activism that repels them. 16 Conclusions This essay tells us why the Anna Hazare movement was so potent. It was able to employ Gandhian motifs to popularise an  urban middle class worry that has had, until now, less currency in the rest of India. The strong legal tinge to the movement – and the legal credentials of the

activists in the movement – ensures that it is able to suggest tangible legislative changes in terms of clauses and sections. The energy and acumen of India Shining gave the movement its media-savviness and heft.

PERSPECTIVES

44 july 23, 2011 vol xlvi no 30 Economic & Political Weekly This has some parallels with the Indian national movement where lawyers were able to navigate the tricky path to constitutional democracy, the professional middle class provided organisational skills, and Gandhi was able to spread the liberalism

of the hitherto urban, elite Indian National Congress to the peasantry. The uniqueness

of the movement can also be judged by the public reception to a subsequent fast

by the yoga guru, Baba Ramdev. Neither backed by legal expertise nor by India

Shining’s expertise and media savvy, his movement fizzled out as quickly as it began.

Intellectual Strands The essay also tells us about middle class intellectual strands in 21st century India First, it demonstrates the growing potency o f Legal Activism. The tendency for democracies to convert political problems into legal troubles has been chronicled elsewhere (Hirschl 2004). The 2G spectrum allocation and Commonwealth Games were not plagued by the absence of laws, but by the absence of political will. Yet, the Anna Hazare movement was able to use the groundswell of public outrage these scams generated to present a legal solution. Perhaps, the middle class is most comfortable with the “rule of law” solutions because it circumscribes political discretion – much as the Supreme Court has demonstrated this tension between the rule of law and politics. Second, the Anna Hazare movement tells us that India Shining is the most potent, most effective kind of middle class strand that

exists in India, supplanting the values of the traditional Nehruvian middle class.With the growing economy, it is this middle class that will expand. The challenge for those put off by their self-interest is to convert their enthusiasm into something larger. Third, the movement shows us that far from being a traditional Gandhian of the likes of Vinoba Bhave, Anna Hazare is a neo-Gandhian, employing Gandhigiri. He uses Gandhian motifs and methods, without the Mahatma’s political imagination.

This means that Gandhigiri can be harnessed for the demands of the urban middle class, making it that much more potent, if that much less legitimate. Doubtless, the Anna Hazare movement  tapped into an India weary with corruption, and it is unfair to reduce its support to enclaves in urban India. Yet, the middle class strands supporting the movement give us pause. None of them have any problem with the unrepresentative nature of the movement or the draconian powers given to the Lokpal. No matter how earnest, India’s middle class has yet to view the political class as legitimate, the party system as the main way to achieve programmatic changes. Until that happens, middle class activism will be consciously

set up in opposition to electoral politics, rather than as a potent force within it.

Notes

1 Associated Press, “India: Hunger Striker Claims Victory”, The New York Times, 8 April 2001. 2 For a representative sample of gushing news reports at the time, see Anurag Kotoky and Henry Foy, “Government under Pressure over Anna Hazare’s

Fast”, Reuters, 7 April 2011; Durgesh Nandan Jha, “It’s a Fight to the Cinish for Citizens’ Rights: Anna Hazare”, The Times of India, 6 April 2011.3 The definition they used was based on a disposable income of Rs 1,00,000 to 2,00,00 a year, See “The ‘Bird of Gold’: The Rise of India’s Consumer Market”, Mckinsey Global Institute (2007) available at  http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/reports/pdfs/india_

consumer_market/MGI_india_consumer_executive_ summary.pdf (viewed on 4th January 2010). 4 Agencies, “Anna Hazare Contradicts Ramdev on Lokpal Bill”, The Indian Express, 10 April 2011. 5 Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala, AIR 1973

SC 1461. 6 The superseded judges were justices J M Shelat, K S Hegde and A N Grover. In the Kesavananda case, all three judges had held that there were basic

features of the Constitution which were not amendable by Parliament. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi appointed justice A N Ray in their place, a judge who had taken Parliament’s side in the judgment. 7 Times News Network, “33% Compliance to RTI

Orders”, The Times of India, 13 August 2010. 8 Unni Krishnan & Ors vs State of Andhra Pradesh,AIR 1993, SC 217. 9 Times News Network, “RS Shows Its ‘Concern’ for Historic Right to Education Bill”, The Times of India, 21 July 2009.

10 Seema Chishti, “Why the Hurry and Do We Really Need More Laws Ask Legal Luminaries Activists”,The Indian Express, 17 April 2011. 11 Editorial, “The Stand-off over Corruption”, The Hindu, 8 April 2011. 12 For the state’s pro-business drift in the 1980s, see Atul Kohli, State-Directed Development (Cambridge University Press), 2004, 277-85. For a general overview, see D Rodrik and A Subramanian (2004), “From Hindu Gr owth to Productivity Surge: The Mystery of the Indian Growth Transition”, unpublished mimeo, Harvard University (http://ksghome.harvard.

edu/~ drodrik/ IndiapaperdraftMarch2.pdf). 13 Seema Chishti, “Jantar Mantar Core Group Lost Out Last Year, Struck Back with Anna”, The Indian Express, 9 April 2011.14 Press Trust of India, “Hazare’s Associates Close to BJP, Says Digvijay”, Deccan Chronicle, 15 April 2011. 15 This attitude was nurtured amidst the ruins of

western Europe in the aftermath of second world war. This disillusionment grew starker after the horrors of the Stalinist state, long seen as the global vehicle

of Marxist thought, were exposed. This intellectual crisis within the Old Left grew to a full blown theoretical response in the gay cafés of Paris with the writings of deconstructionist Michel Foucault. By the time of the student uprisings of 1968, the intellectual Left was moving away from orthodox Marxism to a post-modern, post-structuralist attitude. Two  ideas of the this New Left, constructed in opposition

to the Old Left, had crystalised: a deep suspicion of the modern state, and a move away from Marx’s unsexy focus on just class to the legitimisation of all

kinds of marginalised/subaltern identities. 16 The Independent Left is by no means the only intellectual critique against the Jan Lokpal Bill. The political theorist Pratap Mehta is critical of the movement’s open scorn for electoral democracy (Mehta 2011). This liberal-constitutional position, best articulated by B R Ambedkar’s Grammar of

Anarchy speech referred to in this essay, also holds  fasting to be coercive and anti-democratic. Amongst English-language papers, The Indian Express’ editorials were in line with this view (disclosure: I was previously employed by The Express). Yet this

argument rubs against the middle class grain; it will be representative only when the Indian middle class grows comfortable with the foundational legitimacy of democratic politics. Until then, the Independent Left will remain the Indian middle

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Greater Primacy for State-Building
in Congo?

JOHN S. MOOLAKKATTU

  One of the functions of politics is to mediate between competing groups in
society vying for access to resources of various kinds. This is a function
that cannot be easily left to nongovernmental actors. Many African conflicts
emerge from the failure or incapacity of the state to play the role of an
impartial mediator in a reasonably just manner. This is often attributed to
the patrimonial and privatized character of African states and their inability
to provide essential law and order functions, not to speak of developmental
ones. Restoration of the ability of the state to mediate conflicts among various
groups on the basis of certain rules that are accepted by a wide section
of society is crucial for a minimal level of order. While the state’s acts of
commission and omission have been responsible for many conflicts in Africa,
the weakening of the state, in turn, can worsen the situation. What is needed,
therefore, is the transformation of the state to a functioning institution capable
of performing a number of core functions such as provision of personal
security to citizens. This is obviously a long haul for many fragile African
states like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Institutionalist approaches to state-building are often looked on with a certain
degree of suspicion. There are victims whose experiences of the state
are negative and expectations from it very low, and see any increase in state
capacity with a certain degree of trepidation. Supporters of the neo-liberal
model are generally averse to the strengthening of the state apparatus and
want it to remain as perhaps the most important actor among a range of actors
involved in the process of governance. If one of the causes for the persistence
of conflicts in Africa is state failure not only to mediate conflicts, but also to
provide certain minimal services such as physical security to the public, then
the neo-liberal route to conflict recovery currently being promoted may not
be the right approach to achieve sustainable peace.
Attaching primacy to political normalization and state-building (not
nation-building) is therefore crucial to peace in Africa. State-building is defined
here as the process of equipping the state with the capacity, institutions,
GREATER PRIMACY FOR STATE-BUILDING IN CONGO? and legitimacy to act as a reasonably just and impartial mechanism, one that
not only mediates between different groups, but also creates an environment
in which interactions with citizens are made possible, and security and essential
services are provided. Lund and Wolpe say: “Whether . . . problems are
ultimately resolved depends on the dispositions and relationships of the political
leaders themselves who have the prime responsibility for facing them.”
An approach “that seeks to evoke these leaders’ own sense of responsibility
and desires for their country, and demonstrates how their interests can be
achieved through more collaborative ways of dealing with each other” needs
to be impressed upon them.
African countries are in the process of building an institutional structure
that tries to fuse values of their own society with those that are being
handed down to them by theWest in the guise of the international community.
They do not have the autonomy to choose a path of their own, unlike some
Asian countries that disengaged from their colonial linkages at a faster pace.
The authoritarian development route that Asian countries had adopted three
decades back is neither a desirable option nor is thinkable for African states
now. There is, however, a desire among many African states to disengage
from their neocolonial connections and develop political institutions relying
on endogenous resources. The creation of the African Peer Review Mechanism
(APRM), under the aegis of the African Union (AU) and the reluctance
of Africans to work with seemingly hegemonic mechanisms like the African
Command (AFRICOM) set up by the United States, in some ways, reflect that
desire.
The 2000 Brahimi report on United Nations’ (UN) peacekeeping and
post-conflict reconstruction efforts says that consensus on the type and shape
of the state to be built, and agreement between all parties on the process
that will be used to create a future state, is necessary. These should not be
confined to the formal authority structures alone in the African situation, but
should also look at informal authority structures such as the Church and some
progressive traditional systems. The word “peacebuilding” in post-conflict
societies is seen primarily as an activity to be undertaken outside the state
structures. This needs to be corrected, and the state should be brought in
as the most important actor in post-conflict reconstruction. The World Bank
has realized its importance quite recently and has merged its peacebuilding
fund into a common State and Peacebuilding Fund. Given its predilections
for a neo-liberal state, however, its efforts aimed at strengthening the state are
severely circumscribed.
Often, aid for reconstruction efforts reaches the agencies bypassing the
state structures. The national budget must have primacy in heralding
policy reform. External aid is often not routed through the national budgetary
mechanisms. Instead, parallel structures are created for its delivery. In other
words, donors must work to strengthen and not undermine national systems
of governance. Routing aid through the fledgling state institutions will make
them functional and contribute to the enhancement of their legitimacy. The
international agencies often project their activities, and, in doing so, indirectly
undermine the state structures in the eyes of the public. Brahimi said: “Even
the United Nations and its agencies are all too often guilty of giving too much
importance to considerations of prestige and their own funding needs at the
expense of what is actually required to establish and consolidate peace and
stability.”
The lack of emphasis on state-building will leave the state structures no
different from their earlier forms after the international intervention, and may
only serve to perpetuate conflict and undermine the state’s future capacity
for building peace. The state could be seen as a means to achieve peace
and order and an arbiter between competing interests. All the efforts of the
international agencies should be aimed at developing an early exit strategy
rather than engaging in actions that lead to a situation of self-perpetuation.
Liberal democracy and a free market are two elements that are sought to be
promoted in states recovering from violent conflicts, ostensibly to assist these
countries in making the transition to peace from a state of anarchy. While
it is true that Western democracies have achieved a “security community”
status, the thesis does not hold well in countries like the DRC. It must be
noted that very few African countries have fought each other despite their
poor democratic record. Conflict in Africa is predominantly intrastate and is
surprisingly not centered on questioning the territorial integrity of states like
the DRC, which is known for its sheer size and ungoverned spaces.
The international project of post-conflict reconstruction is based on a
standardized agenda that adopts strategies of democratization either through
the existing institutions or without them if they are found to be in poor shape.
The DRC is one state where the latter has largely been the case. The state in
the DRC was seen as a pariah by the donors, and they often tried to circumvent
it in their activities. This has led to neither peace nor state-building. Instead,
there exists an all-around lack of security, especially for women and children.
It is a question of sequencing activities. Even if the regime that is propped up
tends to have some predatory elements, it is always better that local people
themselves are enlisted to evolve corrective measures that fit their notions of
justice, even if those states may not live up to the standards envisaged in the
West.
Part of the reason why international agencies take a cavalier attitude
toward the existing state lies in the increasing salience of the doctrine of
Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which has undercut the inviolability of the
sovereignty principle (this has been stated in unambiguous terms by the International
Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty [ICISS] since
2001). The General Assembly has also concurred with the view that state.
failure to perform its assigned tasks to the citizenry will invite the application
of the R2P doctrine. There are some who want all post-conflict reconstruction
efforts to be driven by national forces, while others insist that international
agencies tidy up the mess. There are yet others who take an instrumental view
of it: Whichever party is in command is immaterial if the end results are good.
These are issues that need to be addressed contextually. One rule of the thumb
should be to streamline all international action to work in tandem with local
and national authority structures, including those of an informal nature, so
that local actors feel empowered in the process and feel a sense of ownership
The parallel aid structures created by international agencies often attract
the best human resources available in the country, compared to the poorly
paid government personnel. State officials see themselves marginalized by the
mere presence and capacity of the external actors and the way they dominate
the post-conflict reconstruction processes. Staff that are recruited by the international
actors are much better paid and enjoy much better physical facilities
compared to state officials. Instead, focus should be on supporting state officials
with better incentives so that they gradually disengage from rent-seeking
behavior. Consider, for example, the project-based approach to reconstruction
that is adopted by international agencies. The Congolese seem not to be involved
in the identification and implementation of projects. More meritorious
local civil servants found working in these international projects much more
lucrative, leading to the flight of personnel from the government sector to the
nongovernmental organization (NGO) sector. Those who could not do that
resorted to the familiar predatory strategies, partly for survival reasons. In the
Eastern parts of the DRC, although government posts are manned, salaries
are seldom paid so much so that officials prey on every opportunity to earn a
living. The predatory nature of the state is only reinforced by the international
presence in such cases.
Some Congolese authorities and international experts argue that themost
important priority is resolving the problems of security by putting reform
of the police, judiciary, and army at the top of the list. Others argue that
without tackling the problems of governance and high-level institutionalized
corruption, all reform efforts will be meaningless. Where life itself is in
danger, creating institutions in which life can be protected should receive
higher priority.What exists in the DRC is a kind of Hobbesian state of nature,
and it is my contention that the Hobbesian logic of creating a state that
can restore order should take pride of place in post-conflict reconstruction
efforts in the country. In other words, political authority needs to be organized
securely before we can think of any form of community life.
In the DRC, local and international NGOs often sideline the state in
their development initiatives. While it is true that the existing structures are
corrupt and hold out little promise, it is perhaps only through the very same
structures that a sustainable order can be built. The core functions of the
state cannot be performed by any of the NGOs, however well-endowed they
may be. Although the Congolese state is unable to govern, it has registered
its presence everywhere through its officials. People even now access certain
elements of the government providing services such as education, electricity,
licensing, and so on. It should be noted that the African state has not aspired to
be aWestphalian state. Notions like sovereignty did not matter tomostAfrican
leaders until recently. This is partly due to the grey area of authority between
indigenous and modern state institutions. Throughout the DRC’s long years
of state decay, ordinary Congolese tried to fend for themselves through village
associations, churches, professional bodies, and civil society groups.
In North Kivu, non-state institutions like churches and customary bodies
have filled the power vacuum created by state. Councils of elders have been
established with representatives from different ethno-linguistic groups, and
these councils engage in conflict resolution and tackling governance issues.
These are certainly nascent institutions that have not come up in opposition
to the state, but have stepped in to occupy the vacuum created by the state.
They still rely on the state for obtaining licenses, academic certification,
accreditation, and so on.
Early creation of a minimally functioning state is essential to maintain
peace, however narrowly it may be defined. Other institutions should see
themselves as transitional arrangements to be replaced by the state in the long
term. While it is true that delivery of a number of relief functions through the
international agencies and local NGOs will yield quick results, this should
be seen at best as a short-term arrangement. Every effort should be made to
work with whatever state institutions are present as early as possible. This
demands a high degree of humility on the part of individuals acting on behalf
of international agencies and recognition of the context and complexity of the
work they do.
What sort of state-building should take place? It is here that the role
of outside actors becomes suspect. First of all, many African states are not
sought to be recreated, but perhaps to be created in the first place. This applies
more aptly to the DRC where the past is no guide for action. The creation
of states in the image of the West is not easily attainable and should not be
attempted. Perhaps what can be done is to allow the local forces to take the
lead in any sort of political arrangement that might evolve, with the outsiders
playing a merely facilitative role. The key here is to allow indigenization so
that the structures that emerge from the process are organic and people are
able to have some affinity with them.
The absence of a proper cadre of civil service in the DRC and the
presence of a proper cadre of civil service in the DRC and the
presence of international actors create a situation in which the Congolese
government is able to transfer questions of accountability to its international
partners.
Theodore Trefon wrote:
The reform planning process in DRC is flawed. There is a missing link in it. The
missing link is a qualified, dynamic, honest, hard-working cadre of civil servants
who are decently paid, respected by service users and motivated to rebuild the
country. This explains in large part why reform initiatives have not achieved the
expected results. The absence or sluggishness of reform is also accounted for by
the fact that the massive presence of international reform efforts has taken the
burden off the Congolese government and Congolese civil servants. Instead of being
accountable to the people, authorities reassign the abstract notion of accountability
to its international partners. Authorities are exonerated from the responsibilities
associated with their fundamental mandate of facilitating the development agenda
and improving the well-being of the population.
Many scholars tend to be pessimistic about the prospects of building an
effective Congolese state, and some even cite the high costs involved in
such an enterprise. But the fact of the matter is that there has never been a
Congolese state worth the name so far, and this is an investment that any
worthwhile post-conflict reconstruction has to focus on for long-term peace
and stability. Despite all pessimistic accounts, Congo has not broken apart
and remains as a unitary state with some remnants of the state structure
everywhere, even though functioning in a personalized way. Instead of fostering
fissiparous tendencies in a time of crisis, political leaders have been
more concerned as to how they could have a share of the national cake of
power. This shows that the base of the Congolese state is relatively unshaken,
even though its translation into concrete government entities is fraught with
problems.
While donors have increasingly come to appreciate that both peace- and
state-building processes are inherently political, technical approaches
continue to dominate. Donors have to develop their political sensitivity even
more in complex scenarios such as that of the DRC. Countries like South
Africa work primarily through the DRC state structures in their conflict recovery
support programs. It will undoubtedly take considerable time and
efforts to build a minimally functioning Congolese state. All the short-term
activities of the international agencies should be tailored toward this long-term
objective. What is needed immediately is a realistic assessment of the existing
capacities at the national and regional levels, and how international agencies
can work with them, strengthening them in the process. This means recognizing
the primacy of the state, even if it is found to be fragile and predatory.
This would set in motion a cumulative process of enhancing the capacity of
the state. It is necessary to ensure that the Congolese are in the drivers’ seat
in any sort of intervention, and only then will there be local ownership of the
process and validation of the principle of sovereignty.
Finally, women and their concerns demand that state-building, particularly
its law and order functions, are focused. They are the victims of the
failure of the state to provide security or, in some cases, the state itself is seen
as one of the sources of their insecurity. It is in their interest that the core
function of providing security to people in the minimalist sense is taken up
seriously. This is because women can never engage in any productive activity,
including agriculture, to support the ones whose care has been entrusted to
them for fear of being raped with impunity. Raped women experience not
only the physical and mental trauma accompanying the act, but also continue
to face the social stigma throughout their lives. From the point of view of the
ordinary people, far from democracy, it is a certain amount of predictability in
their lives that matters. They have never looked on the Congolese state as an
institution capable of providingwelfare services.Corruption and issues related
to democratization are concerns of the more educated and mobile segments
within Congolese society that they share with the international agencies, and
such concerns, while legitimate, should be addressed at a later stage of the
process of state-building.
RECOMMENDED READINGS
Brahimi, L. 2007. “Statebuilding in Crisis and Post-Conflict Countries.” 7th Global Forum on
Reinventing Government, Building Trust in Government. Vienna: June 26–29.
Doe, Samuel G. 2009. “Indigenizing Postconflict State Reconstruction in Africa: A Conceptual
Framework.” Africa Peace and Conflict Journal 2(1): 1–16.
Lund, Michael and Howard Wolpe. 2009. “Engaging Leaders for Statebuilding: The
Case of the Democratic Republic of Congo.” Woodrow Wilson International Center
for Scholars. <http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic id=1411&fuseaction=topics.
publications&group id=637008>.
Menocal, Alina Rocha. 2009. “‘State-Building for Peace’: Navigating an Arena of Contradictions,”
ODI Briefing Paper 52. <http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/3673.pdf>.
Trefon, Theodore. 2010. “Administrative Obstacles to Reform in the Democratic Republic of
Congo.” International Review of Administrative Sciences 76(4): 702–722.
Vlassenroot, Koen and Hans Romkema. 2007. “Local Governance and Leadership
in Eastern DRC.” <http://www.psw.ugent.be/crg/publications/working%20paper/localgov
rapport eng def.pdf>.
John S. Moolakkattu is a Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute
of Technology Madras, Chennai, India. E-mail: moolakkattu@gmail.com