Perhaps the most sincere effort to create democratic instititutions
was in India, where the new constitution
called for social justice, liberty, equality of status and opportunity,
and fraternity. All citizens were guaranteed
protection from discrimination on the grounds of religious
belief, race, caste, sex, or place of birth.
In theory, then, India became a full-fledged democracy
on the British parliamentary model. In actuality, a number
of distinctive characteristics made the system less
than fully democratic in the Western sense but may also
have enabled it to survive. As we have seen, India became
in essence a one-party state. By leading the independence
movement, the Congress Party had gained
massive public support, which enabled it to retain its preeminent
position in Indian politics for three decades. The
party also avoided being identified as a party exclusively
for the Hindu majority by including prominent non-
Hindus among its leaders and favoring measures to protect
minority groups such as Sikhs, untouchables, and
Muslims from discrimination.
After Nehru’s death in 1964, however, problems
emerged that had been disguised by his adept maneuvering.
Part of the problem was the familiar one of a party
too long in power. Party officials became complacent and
all too easily fell prey to the temptations of corruption
and pork-barrel politics.
Another problem was communalism. Beneath the surface
unity of the new republic lay age-old ethnic, linguistic,
and religious divisions. Because of India’s vast size and
complex history, no national language had ever emerged.
Hindi was the most prevalent, but it was the native language
of less than one-third of the population. During the
colonial period, English had served as the official language
of government, and many non-Hindi speakers suggested
making it the official language. But English was
spoken only by the educated elite, and it represented an
affront to national pride. Eventually, India recognized
fourteen official tongues, making the parliament sometimes
sound like the Tower of Babel.
Divisiveness increased after Nehru’s death, and under
his successors, official corruption grew. Only the lack of
appeal of its rivals and the Nehru family charisma carried
on by his daughter Indira Gandhi kept the party in power.
But she was unable to prevent the progressive disintegration
of the party’s power base at the state level, where regional
or ideological parties won the allegiance of voters
by exploiting ethnic or social revolutionary themes.
During the 1980s, religious tensions began to intensify,
not only among Sikhs in the northwest but also between
Hindus and Muslims. As we have seen, Gandhi’s uncompromising
approach to Sikh separatism led to her assassination
in 1987. Under her son, Rajiv Gandhi, Hindu
militants at Ayodhya, in northern India, demanded the
destruction of a mosque built on a holy site where a
Hindu temple had previously existed. In 1992, Hindu
demonstrators destroyed the mosque and erected a temporary
temple at the site, provoking clashes between Hindus
and Muslims throughout the country. In protest, rioters
in neighboring Pakistan destroyed a number of Hindu
shrines in that country.
In recent years, communal divisions have intensified
as militant Hindu groups agitate for a state that caters to
the Hindu majority, now numbering more than 700 million
people. In the spring of 2002, violence between Hindus
and Muslims flared up again over plans by Hindu
activists to build a permanent temple at the site of the
destroyed mosque at Ayodhya.
World History
