Rajeev Bhargava, University of New Delhi
What is the experience of your country in dealing with diversity?
I think we have done pretty well. Any democracy requires both that there be a shared culture and a shared identity, but if that democracy has deep social cultural and religious diversity, then it has two options. One is to reject them and the other is to accommodate them and we believe, not just for India but more generally that it’s much better to give public recognition to these different social cultural and linguistic ethnic religious groups, in other words, to accommodate them and that’s exactly what we’ve done.
So, we have a system of linguistic federalism, all the states. India is sort of cut up in two different states, which are organized on the basis of language. We have cultural rights for minorities and also religious rights, rights for religious minorities and we also have affirmative action programs for those groups which have been historically disadvantaged. And all these are rights, which are given, not to individuals but to groups.
So, there are various ways in which they have been accommodated, but somehow we have also had some mechanisms by which these groups do not feel that they are completely insulated from the rest of society. There is also a sense of share, belonging and shared identify.
Now, of course there is, when I said this, a little bit of idealization here, but that’s how it’s all supposed to work and it does not always work like that and it has not always worked for some groups in the way in which the constitution makers thought it should work. But you have kind of my considered judgement and my considered judgement is that it’s sort of on the whole, all things considered, worked reasonably well with a few exceptions.
What would you say are the main challenges to democracy today?
Well, I think I would say that there are three challenges. I think one challenge is the growing inequality between the rich and the poor and between the urban and the rural areas. And in such …this doesn’t fit directly into the issue that we are concerned with, but indirectly it does, because it creates those conditions where the differences and the cleavages, which are based on group differences, they can get overheated. And they can be politically activated and politically mobilised in directions which lead to social tensions and not just social tensions, but social conflict and violence, and that always undermines democracy.
So, one of the challenges for democracy is how to reduce this inequality, not only for its own sake, but also in order to manage diversity better. That’s one.
The second is, as I said there are some exceptions to this general rule of accommodation and the two outstanding exceptions I think are (1) Kashmir, and the other is the North East. Both are on the borders, one on the north and the other is in the east and both involve communities which are in some ways … they see themselves as distinct and separate. And in this record where both have been very mixed, it has managed, to some extent it managed both and to some extent it’s mismanaged these different regions and these different groups. And I think one of the big challenges for democracy in India is to somehow manage that.
Given its democratic process, what it has to do is to not just initiate but to sustain a dialogue and create conditions of trust whereby they can have faith in the political system whereby it would be possible for them to both have the kind of autonomy that they wish to have, as well as be part of the country, right - but I don’t think we have always … we haven’t really managed it as well as we should have and that’s the second big challenge.
And I think probably the third challenge is, and here again our record is mixed and it is very uneven. It’s depending upon which state we are in. In some states it’s better. In other states it’s not as good, and this is the issue of the Muslim minority. I think we still have to somehow make not just some but all Muslims feel that they are part of the Indian society and we have to make them feel that they can live in India with equal dignity and respect.
Some governments have done it. The constitution does it and other governments haven’t done it and there are people who have a memory of old hostilities and so on, which are politically used by certain militant and chauvinist groups and I think as long as this continues to happen, we can’t say that our democracy is managing out these diversities. So, I think these are three big challenges before us.
Phone interview with Mr Rajeev Bhargava, University of New Delhi, 30 May 2007.
Interviewer: Monika Ericson, Communications Officer at International IDEA.
