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| India-Pakistan |
| A Hindu backlash hits Sonia Gandhi |
| 2007-12-26 |
| By M.D. NALAPAT Since the advent of the rule of the Mughals a millenium ago, central policy in India has discriminated against the Hindu majority within the country. The Mughals favored those of Turko-Iranian origin, followed by those who converted to Islam. The British, during two centuries of rule, implemented policies that deprived all except those of European origin of basic human rights. Much has been made in Indian history texts of the cruelty of the 1857 mutineers against colonial rule, who killed around 300 individuals of European descent during a brief spasm of violence. But little mention is made of the retribution that followed, in which an estimated 65,000 natives were killed, some from the mouths of cannon. Several "rebel" villages were torched, usually together with their inhabitants. Neither has there been much reflection on the manner in which British rule reduced India to poverty. From around one-fourth of global output at the start of the 19th century, the share of the subcontinent fell to one-tenth of that by the time the British flag was lowered in New Delhi in 1947. Independent India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had been educated from boyhood in Britain. He was so insecure after the British left that he requested the last viceroy of India, Louis Mounbatten, to remain as "free" India's first governor-general and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. British control over the Indian army helped to prevent the full takeover of Kashmir by India in 1948, creating in the process a sore that has festered ever since. Nehru also relied on British economist Nicholas Kaldor to fashion tax policies that punished the very merchant class that had funded the Congress Party's decades-long struggle against the British. Ironically, the new government was as hostile to Indian entrepreneurship as the colonial power had been, and the country's economy was soon straitjacketed by a "socialist pattern of society." While laws were passed that overrode Hindu customs ( including, it must be said, retrogressive ones such as caste), Nehru took care to exclude the Muslims and other minority groups from such legislation, thus retaining the separatist mindset which had resulted in the creation of the "Muslim" state of Pakistan out of "Hindu" India. As a consequence of carrying forward policies that saw the Hindus as a threat and therefore sought to place them on a level below those of the minorities in India, while Hindu temples are subject to state control, churches, mosques and other minority houses of worship remain free. Several ancient temples are now administered by atheists or other non-Hindus in states across the country, and the donations that pour into them from Hindu devotees are sequestered by the state. In education, while Hindu managements face severe restrictions and controls, managements that are Christian or Muslim escape almost all such state-mandated limitations on their freedom. Since Sonia Gandhi took over the governance of India in 2004 and appointed a prime minister from a minority faith, there has been an explicit bias in policy favoring minority groups at the expense of the Hindu majority, and a conscious effort to sideline officials seen as "practicing Hindus" -- those who regularly visit temples -- on the grounds that they are "Hindu fanatics." By contrast, almost none of the numerous bomb explosions that have taken place in Congress-ruled cities across India -- such as Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad -- have been traced to the perpetrators, because of an informal prohibition against "stereotyping" that prevents the police from intensive investigations in the mainly Muslim localities where the perpetrators are believed to be sheltering. Such "partial" secularism, in which only Hindus are expected to be secular while Muslims and other minorities remain free to practice exclusionary practices, has led to a Hindu backlash across India. This found its first major expression in the Dec. 23 verdict of the electorate of Gujarat state, who re-elected the state's chief minister, Narendra Modi, despite a well-funded rebellion within the ranks of his own party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, as well as the enmity of almost the entire television and print media. The media correctly see him as posing a possibly fatal challenge to the Nehruvian policies that were embraced by the first BJP prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, who was as deferential toward Sonia Gandhi's interests as members of her own Congress Party had been in the past. Modi thus challenges not only Sonia Gandhi but the Vajpayee cohort in his own party, who have for decades enjoyed a cozy and lucrative relationship with the Nehrus. Despite occasional public posturing, in practice, the present crop of BJP leaders has been content to share in the spoils of the present Nehruvian state system. All, that is, except Narendra Modi, who defied his party leadership in making Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh -- both of whom, being Christian and Sikh respectively, belong to minority groups -- the target of his verbal barbs, despite strictures from the Sonia-friendly Election Commission. Wresting Gujarat from this potent challenger was crucial to the continued salience of Nehruism, but the strength of the Hindu backlash against policies that penalize the majority community ensured a handsome win. The results have led to apprehension throughout the Nehruvian establishment, including almost the whole of the English-language media, that "Moditva" may spread to other states. It may even within the next five years lead to a takeover of the central government by the Gujarat chief minister, who comes from near the bottom of the Hindu caste ladder, but who has emerged as the favorite of tens of millions of Hindus irrespective of caste, who seek parity with the minorities in running their houses of worship or educational and other institutions. As Malaysia has shown, the advent of globalization and the demonstrated ability of Hindus to compete with the rest of the world have led to a renewal of confidence in a community of 840 million that has been kept at the margins for more than a millennium. The message of Gujarat is that the cry for parity by the Hindu community in India has become a political wave that could upset the Nehruvian system of partial secularism that has prevailed in India since 1947. Dec. 23, 2007 is a genuine turning point in the politics of the world's largest democracy. Professor M.D. Nalapat is vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and professor of geopolitics at Manipal University. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #17 Maddison appears to be no socialist at the present moment: Was he ever? Searching turns up speeches where his statistics are quoted by Alan Greenspan, James Wolfenson etc |
| Posted by: john frum 2007-12-26 23:57 |
| #16 JF: He is a socialist? From the looks of the following passage, Maddison appears to be no socialist at the present moment: Other European powers were losers in the British struggle for supremacy. By the end of the Napoleonic wars, the Dutch had lost all their Asian territories except Indonesia. The French were reduced to a token colonial presence in Asia, and lost their major asset in the Caribbean. Shortly after the war, Brazil established its independence from Portugal. Spain lost its huge colonial empire in Latin America, retaining only Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Britain took over what the French and Dutch had lost in Asia and Africa, extended its control over India, and established a privileged commercial presence in Latin America. Other losers included the former rulers of India, whose power and income were usurped in substantial part by the servants of the British East India Company. Under their rule, from 1757 to 1857, Indian per capita income fell, but British gains were substantial. Between 1820 and 1913, British per capita income grew faster than at any time in the past - three times as fast as in 1 700-1820. The basic reason for improved performance was the acceleration of technical progress, accompanied by rapid growth of the physical capital stock and improvement in the education and skills of the labour force, but changes in commercial policy also made a substantial contribution. In 1846 protective duties on agricultural imports were removed and in 1849 the Navigation Acts were terminated. By 1860, all trade and tariff restrictions had been removed unilaterally. In 1860 there were reciprocal treaties for freer trade with France and other European countries. These had most-favoured nation clauses which meant that bilateral liberalisation applied equally to all countries. Free trade was imposed in India and other British colonies, and the same was true in Britain's informal empire. China, Persia, Thailand and the Ottoman Empire were not colonies, but were obliged to maintain low tariffs by treaties which reduced their sovereignty in commercial matters, and granted extraterritorial rights to foreigners. This regime of free trade imperialism favoured British exports, but was less damaging to the interests of the colonies than in the eighteenth century, when Jamaica could only trade with Britain and its colonies, Guadeloupe only with France. The British policy of free trade and its willingness to import a large part of its food had positive effects on the world economy. They reinforced and diffused the impact of technical progress. The favourable impact was biggest in North America, the southern cone of Latin America and Australasia which had rich natural resources and received a substantial inflow of capital, but there was also some positive effect in India which was the biggest and poorest part of the Empire. Innovations in communications played a major part in linking national capital markets and facilitating international capital movements. The United Kingdom already had an important role in international finance, thanks to the soundness of its public credit and monetary system, the size of its capital market and public debt, and the maintenance of a gold standard. The existence of the empire created a system of property rights which appeared to be as securely protected as those available to investors in British securities. It was a wealthy country operating close to the frontiers of technology, so its rentiers were attracted to foreign investment even when the extra margin of profit was small. From the 1870s onward, there was a massive outflow of British capital for overseas investment. The United Kingdom directed half its savings abroad. French, German and Dutch investment was also substantial. At the same time, it has to be said that this doesn't make his wild guesses any more accurate. How can native Indian industries that are so easily displaced by foreign imports be said to be somehow part of a more productive economy? It would seem that India's closed pre-British rule economy was productive in the same way that Soviet factories were productive prior to the Soviet collapse at the end of the Cold War, that is to say, it wasn't very productive at all. The interesting aspect of this passage by Maddison is that it states that India was the poorest part of the Empire, while being the biggest, due to its massive population (estimated at 255m at the beginning of the 19th century). It may well be that India's population had expanded to the Malthusian limits of its time. China's population reached those levels in a much bigger land mass, and the Taiping Rebellion was the result. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2007-12-26 23:49 |
| #15 Hmm... Global Capitalism: The Solution to World Oppression and Poverty By Andrew Bernstein Regarding living standards, one expert, Angus Maddison, states that economic growth during the centuries 500-1500 was non-existent; and that per capita income rose by merely 0.1 percent per year in the years 1500-1700. In 1500, Maddison claims, the European per capita GDP was roughly $215 per year; in 1700, roughly $265. Contrast such economic stagnation with the capitalist epoch, the years 1820 to the present, in which Western Europe and the worldÂ’s other freest nations' total economic output increased sixty times, and per capita income grew to be 13 times what it had been previously. The European population roughly tripled during the 19th century while per capita living standards steadily rose. 13 |
| Posted by: john frum 2007-12-26 23:47 |
| #14 He is a socialist? From his 1997 valedictory lecture The USA not only has much smaller unemployment, but has expanded employment faster than population. This is not due to demographic differences - the American age structure is similar to the European. American policy is job creating. European policy inhibits the growth of employment. The difference between the functioning of European and American capitalism can be seen by comparing real income and productivity outcomes in the two areas. In many European countries, labour markets are highly regulated, with minimum wages, constraints on the freedom of enterprises to fire redundant workers, restrictions on working hours and other regulations which are intended to prevent downsizing and protect those who already have jobs (see Siebert, 1997). In conditions of sustained labour slack they discourage employers from hiring workers and discriminate against the unemployed. Practice in public enterprises mimics that in bureaucracy - with an aspiration for lifetime job security, long vacations, status and perquisites. In some hopelessly uneconomic enterprises, jobs are protected by huge subsidies - e.g. German coalmines. The European economy would have been sounder with more flexible labour markets, less micro-meddling, and more expansionary macropolicy. Certainly not your typical socialist rant.... |
| Posted by: john frum 2007-12-26 23:27 |
| #13 I find particularly amusing this little snippet: Angus Maddison has been an advisor to the governments of Brazil, Ghana, Greece and Pakistan and has travelled widely in developing countries as part of his research interests. A socialist who pulls numbers out of the air hands out advice to governments around the world. My feeling is that they came away with a pretty good feel for how to make silly wild-assed guesses about the past, but little more. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2007-12-26 22:50 |
| #12 John, Angus Maddison is a socialist who came up with the graph in the article Capitalism and the rise of world poverty. If it were up to him, India would still be a closed economy today. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2007-12-26 22:46 |
| #11 http://www.theworldeconomy.org/publications/worldeconomy/ |
| Posted by: john frum 2007-12-26 22:42 |
| #10 http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/ World Population, GDP and Per Capita GDP, 1-2003 AD Angus Maddison |
| Posted by: john frum 2007-12-26 22:35 |
| #9 John, none of your quotations are based on statistics. In today's world, with computers, good roads, airplanes, etc, we can't get a good count of the Chinese or Indian populations. How do you get national output without a count of the population? Extrapolation of the value of exports to the general population is not a good way of counting national output. The highest value items produced by China are sold to the West. The value-added introduced by the Chinese is perhaps 10% of the cost of the item exported. But if we extrapolated the total value of those items to the Chinese population at large, we'd get a number several times that of annual US output. Please stop regurgitating those staples of Indian mythology here. Just because an American dilettante agrees with you doesn't mean it's correct. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2007-12-26 22:34 |
| #8 John, please spare me the contradictory material from Sunderland and Prestowitz, who have but one thing in common - both are American dilettantes in the field of economics. Sunderland, the economic socialist, asserts that countries lose wealth by exporting. Prestowitz, the economic mercantilist, asserts that countries lose wealth by importing*. In neither instance is there any statistical information about what India and China actually produced. We get these airy figures out of nowhere. The stuff about Britain spiriting wealth out of India is a myth. The Brits bought things from India and sold things to India. Unfortunately for India, its habit of projecting Indian habits (of screwing the other guy) meant that they believed the Brits were screwing them in some way via trade. This led to almost five decades of economic autarky combined with stagnation. It is only now, with it starting to export again, that India is regaining the economic vigor that it attained under the British. Note that economic vigor does not mean that the modern equivalent of Gandhi's hand-operated looms will not become extinct (in the manner of the buggy-whip industries mourned by Sunderland) - it means only that India is progressively becoming more and more open to the free competition that it never encountered prior to its opening by the British Raj. * Prestowitz believed that Japanese mercantilism would lead it to the top of the economic heap, that Japan would overtake the US in terms of total GDP, never mind per capita GDP. We know that never happened. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2007-12-26 22:23 |
| #7 Based on such scholars as Bairroch, Parthsarathi, Gura and Pomeranz, Davis brings forth many facts that shore up his argument. 1) In 1800 India's share of the world manufactured product was four times that of Britain, and China's share was even higher. By 1900 India was fully under British control and the ration was 8-1 in England's favor. 2) In 1789 the living standards of China and Western Europe were roughly comparable and it appeared that China was making even better progress with its ecological problems. Naturally, a century later Europeans and Americans were much better off. 3) Despite all the many claims made on behalf of British rule in India, Indian per capita income stayed the same from 1759 to 1947. And contrary to the Malthusian argument, its population didn't grow very much. 4) Indian and Chinese rulers actually had before 1800 a good record of mitigating famines, and one British statistician suggested that whereas for the previous two millennia there was one major famine a century, under British rule there was one every four years. |
| Posted by: john frum 2007-12-26 22:17 |
| #6 |
| Posted by: john frum 2007-12-26 22:10 |
| #5 http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=5578 Six hundred years ago, China and the area that is now India accounted for about 75 percent of global GDP. Europe was insignificant, and America still lay undiscovered beyond the Atlantic. Then, Portugal's Prince Henry the Navigator led an effort to develop superior ships and nautical technology, enabling his captains to get around Africa and develop sea routes that would evade the Arab/Venetian-controlled overland |
| Posted by: john frum 2007-12-26 22:01 |
| #4 he Nationalist Movement in India by Jabez T. Sunderland The Atlantic Monthly October 1908 http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/08oct/nationmo.htm Another cause of India's impoverishment is the destruction of her manufactures, as the result of British rule. When the British first appeared on the scene, India was one of the richest countries of the world; indeed it was her great riches that attracted the British to her shores. The source of her wealth was largely her splendid manufactures. Her cotton goods, silk goods, shawls, muslins of Dacca, brocades of Ahmedabad, rugs, pottery of Scind, jewelry, metal work, lapidary work, were famed not only all over Asia but in all the leading markets of Northern Africa and of Europe. What has become of those manufactures? For the most part they are gone, destroyed. |
| Posted by: john frum 2007-12-26 21:59 |
| #3 "At any rate, when Gallus was prefect of Egypt, I accompanied him and ascended the Nile as far as Syene and the frontiers of Ethiopia, and I learned that as many as one hundred and twenty vessels were sailing from Myos Hormos to India, whereas formerly, under the Ptolemies, only a very few ventured to undertake the voyage and to carry on traffic in Indian merchandise." - Strabo ""there is no year in which India does not drain the Roman Empire of fifty million sesterces," "India, China and the Arabian peninsula take one hundred million sesterces from our empire per annum at a conservative estimate: that is what our luxuries and women cost us. For what percentage of these imports is intended for sacrifices to the gods or the spirits of the dead?" -Pliny the Elder |
| Posted by: john frum 2007-12-26 21:58 |
| #2 From around one-fourth of global output at the start of the 19th century, the share of the subcontinent fell to one-tenth of that by the time the British flag was lowered in New Delhi in 1947. I have to laugh at this statement. On the basis of what statistics are we to believe that India generated 1/4 of global output at the beginning of the 19th century? Are we to believe that a pre-British India without primary schooling, railroads, Industrial Age equipment and so on was more productive than the India after the British ran the place? I understand Indians (Hindus and Muslims alike) have this love for mythology. What Indians need to stop doing is substituting myths for facts when writing their history. It makes them look like parasites and congenital liars rather than potential allies of the West. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2007-12-26 21:08 |
| #1 It is mystifying why Hindus haven't in recent years taken to suppressing the Muslim minority. The obvious drive to push them into Pakistan and Bangladesh could have long been an incentive based form of ethnic cleansing. Make it easy for them to leave. But militant Hindus have long been unclear on their objectives, instead of focusing on their enemies, they put too much effort into elevating Hindus. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-12-26 18:34 |