By Tarunkumar G. Singhal
Chartered Accountant
“Democracy
on the Road – A 25-Year Journey Through India” by Ruchir Sharma
Ruchir
Sharma is the head of the Emerging Markets Equity team at Morgan Stanley and is
responsible for managing
over $ 25 billion (as AUM or assets under management). He has been with the
firm for 19 years and
is currently a member of the executive committee of Morgan’s investment
management division.
The
World Economic Forum in Davos selected him as one of the world’s “Top Young
Leaders” in 2007. In 2012,he
was named one of the top global thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine. And
Bloomberg said in 2015 that he was one
of the “Top 50 Most Influential” people in the world.
Ruchir Sharma has been
writing for many years, drawing on
his travels as a global investor. He typically spends one week every month in a
different emerging market where he meets
leading CEOs and top politicians, among others. He writes for the New York
Times, Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street
Journal, Financial Times and The Times
of India.
His
first two books, Breakout Nations (2012) and The Rise and
Fall of Nations (2016), were both international bestsellers.
Passionate
about politics, he is part of an informal group of senior editors and writers
who travel extensively before major
state and national elections; logging over 1,000 miles in 4 to 5 days, they
meet with the nation’s top leaders
to get a first-hand feel of local politics. At times this group calls itself
the “limousine (or Cadillac) liberals”.
In
Democracy on the Road, Ruchir takes readers along on his travels
through India. On the eve of the landmark 2019
election, he offers an unrivalled portrait of how India and its democracy work,
drawing from two decades on the
road, chasing election campaigns across every major state, travelling the
equivalent of a lap around the earth. Democracy takes
readers on a rollicking ride with this merry band of scribes as they talk to
farmers, shopkeepers and
CEOs from Rajasthan to Tamil Nadu and interview leaders from Narendra Modi to
Rahul Gandhi.
Few
books have traced the arc of modern India by taking readers so close to the
action. Offering an intimate glimpse into
the lives and minds of India’s political giants and its people, he explains how
the complex forces of family, caste and community, economics and development, money
and corruption, Bollywood and godmen have conspired to elect and topple leaders
since Indira Gandhi. The most encouraging message from his travels is that while
democracy is retreating in many parts of the world, it is thriving in India.
The
book is divided into 6 parts and 40 chapters. Starting from his childhood and
student days, it provides a
ringside view of Indian elections from 1998 onwards. The concluding part, “Back
in Balance”, deals with the current
political situation in which Ruchir summarises his observations, offers his
conclusions and shares the
wisdom gained from a close assessment of Indian elections as an international
investor.
Here
are some nuggets from the cauldron of Indian electoral politics:
- “The odds are
against Indian politicians holding on to their offices. In theory, the seated
government has big advantages,
starting with the fund-raising capacity to meet the ever-growing expenses
involved in fighting an election.
It can dole out favours and contracts…”
- “Yet,
incumbents don’t usually win, challengers do. Voters, though glad to pocket
expensive campaign gifts, still
vote their own minds.”
- “Ultimately,
power resides not with the candidates or their moneybags but with the Indian
voter.”
- “Small shifts
in the vote, or the allegiance of one small alliance partner, can make or break
state or national governments.
It all looks like a recipe for instability.”
- “But minority
governments, built on compromises among rival parties, are not a special
problem of Indian democracy.
They are a standard feature of parliamentary democracy.”
- “A multi-party
parliamentary democracy can produceserial political and economic crises, as in
Italy, but also long-term
success, as in Germany.”
- “Have weak
minority governments hurt India’s development? History suggests not. The
economy limped along at the so-called ‘Hindu rate of growth’ under mostly
strong Congress governments until the 1980s, then started to reform and pick up
speed under the weak coalition governments that followed.”
- “India has so
many parties because it has so many different communities, separated by caste,
religion, tribe or
language and each one wants its own representative.”
- “While in some
opinion polls Indians express a growing desire for a strong leader, unshackled
from an often
gridlocked parliament, the electoral reality is that the country rebels against
domineering political bosses.”
- “Ever since
Indira Gandhi imposed the Emergency and fell in the backlash, no Prime Minister
has been able to
gain political momentum without triggering fears that they were growing
dangerously strong and inspiring the fragmented
opposition parties to unite…Modi may face a similar obstacle.”
- “Supporters
praise Modi for raising India’s stature in the world. But more than once we
have seen Indian leaders
lionised by the global elite from Mumbai to New York, only to be thrown out by
the Indian voters who care more
about the government’s impact on their daily lives.”
- “Voters express
impatience with the pace of progress and at unresponsive democracy, but not all
take it out on politicians
with the same intensity.”
- “When do seated
leaders buck the odds? While single factors such as high inflation, spiralling
corruption scandals,
or a united opposition can bring down the incumbent, winning is more
complicated;….to win, political
parties have to pass a series of tests.”
- “A shortlist
culled from my years on the road would include tests of community, family,
inflation, welfare, development,
corruption and money. They are not equally weighted. For all the social
progress that India has made, community
identity is still the key to politics.”
- “Understanding
the dynamics of caste and religion down to the local and personal level is the
necessary condition
for winning, but it is often not sufficient.”
- “Family
dynasties pervade our politics. Though it is bitterly critical of the Gandhi
dynasty, the BJP has many leaders
with children active in politics.”
- “More and more
single politicians are rising to power on the argument that freedom from family
ties protects them
from the temptation to profit from office. The cultural winds suggest single
candidates will maintain their advantage
going forward…”
- “The point is,
there is no consistent formula: Candidates can pursue any mix of development
and welfare models, but…the
elections will remain as unpredictable as a ‘cat on the wall, which way will it
jump’?”
- “Alongside
inflation, corruption is the other big incumbent killer, though it works in
strange ways…one of the
supreme ironies of Indian politics is that corruption charges seem to hurt more
than convictions.”
- “In other
emerging countries politicians may come back after a jail term, but rarely does
time in the lock-up provide
a career boost the way it does in India.”
- “Winning
campaigns need to understand the ties that bind Indian voters to community and
family, their frustration
with government and the slow pace of economic progress, the pain of rising
prices, and their sense
of disgust with both corruption and the justice system…Often, challengers
prevail by simply watching the
incumbent fail one or more of these tests.”
The
author concludes on a positive note. He opines that the bigger lesson is that
there are many reasons for optimism. India’s
political DNA is fundamentally socialist and statist. The same socialist DNA
runs through the veins of all the leading parties.
There is no real support for systematic free-market reform, either amongst the
voters or the political elite, and no sign
of what is generally considered good economics will ever become a consistent
election-winning strategy. The more powerful
a politician gets, the more voters expect, and the more frustrated they get
when those expectations are not met. India
does not grow as one economy, it grows as many, less like the United States
more like the European Union. It is less a
country than a continent, more diverse in its communities and languages than
Europe or the Middle East.
The
real strength of our democracy – both economic and political – lies in its
diversity. In no country are the community
and the family roots of political battles more complex or intense, or the
behind-the-scenes battles to build
winning alliances more fierce.
Finally,
Ruchir says the 2019 election is being cast as a nationwide showdown between
Modi and the rest, a referendum
on India’s appetite for a strong man’s rule and commitment to democracy…and
the outcome will depend on whether
the opposition parties work together to unseat him.
The 2019 ballot will offer
a choice between two different political
visions, one celebrating the reality of many Indias and the other aspiring to
build One India. Clearly, when democracy
is in retreat worldwide, it is thriving in India.
