India Since 1980

With India Since 1980, Sumit Ganguly and Rahul Mukherji have written a compact, readable account of how India has changed in the past 30 years. The choice to write about the period since 1980 was not theirs—this book is part of a series on "The World Since 1980." The terms of reference make for a somewhat awkward period in which to analyze contemporary India; I would probably have started my "transformation" story ten years later, using the preceding periods as the "before" part of a before-and-after story.

The authors build their analysis around four transformations of the Indian scene: political, marked by unprecedented mobilization of hitherto marginalized social groups; economic, with the move from state-centered to more market-oriented policies; foreign policy, as India's global role expanded and its most important international relationships shifted toward the United States while Russia's role diminished; and political ethos, as the founders' secularism was challenged by a more assertive Hindu nationalism.

Three of these four transformations form the core of most briefings about contemporary India. On the political side, Ganguly and Mukherji devote much of their analytical effort to the emergence of the dalits (former "untouchables") and backward castes, and to me this is the strongest part of the book. Taken together with the "plebiscitary politics" of Indira Gandhi, the greater prominence of hitherto marginalized groups has led to a decline of the political institution-building that parties used to do. Today, local and state offices are increasingly in the gift of national rather than state leaders, with a corresponding decline in the role of parties in developing politicians skilled at running democratic institutions. Ganguly and Mukherji see in this phenomenon a breakdown of political institutions. What does not come through as clearly as it might, however, is that "plebiscitary politics" were in part designed to provide a direct link for Congress to the vote banks of dalit voters, and that these voters' conclusion that they were being taken for granted fed into the rise of new parties that appealed directly to the lower castes.

The authors pass relatively lightly, however, over another important aspect of India's political transformation—the slow but steady decline in the heft of the parties with national aspirations, Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the increase in the importance of single-state parties. These are not unrelated phenomena. A number of the single-state party magnates got their start by leading backward castes in their states in a revolt against the upper-caste-dominated establishment. But the geographic dimension has a tremendous impact on the functioning of India's political institutions. This extends even to foreign policy, as we have seen in the critical and often disruptive intervention in India's policy toward some of its neighbors by chief ministers in adjacent states, notably West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Moreover, because single-state party leaders have thus far found it necessary to stay within their home states and tend their own political bases, they have not fully entered the competition for leadership in New Delhi.

India's economic transformation has been widely discussed and indeed is one of the drivers behind the transformation of India's social dynamics and foreign policy. Ganguly and Mukherji stress the transformation in economic policymaking and make the important but often overlooked point that precursors of the liberalization policy were visible during the 1980s. They note the increasing importance of the private sector, especially since the high-growth industries are mainly private. I would argue that the political system has not yet digested the implications of this change.

I would also place greater weight than they have on the rapid growth India has achieved through this liberalization. The taste of economic success has changed attitudes toward economic policy, both within the government and in the wider, policy-aware public. In particular, economic growth has led to a shift in foreign policy priorities, with trade, investment, and energy security emerging as central foreign policy and strategic goals.

The authors are correctly critical of India's weak performance in social development, notably education and especially health. As...