Gandhi, Nehru and Gorbachev

Really existing Democracy

India is a failed State. India’s political parties are organized crime groups and most of Indian politicians are gangsters. This is similar to post Soviet Russia. I strongly suggest you the book Godfather of the Kremlin by Paul Klebnikov about rise of Post-Soviet Russia as a Gangster country.

India was ruled by British Imperialists for 200 years and finally got Independence in 1947. The founding fathers of post independence India - people like Gandhi, Nehru & Ambedkar - had a lofty idealistic vision of Democracy. They believed that Democracy will make India into a healthy, compassionate and prosperous society. The reality turned out to be otherwise. Indian political system was ripped apart by polarizing, nationalist & sub-nationalist, proto-fascist forces. Gangsters, organized crime groups, religious fanatics and worst type of Pathocratic leaders took over Indian politics. The lofty dreams of Indian founding fathers were laid to dust and India turned into a failed State.

For better or for worse, Gorbachev can be called founding father of Democratic Russia. Ironically, Gorbachev wanted a Democratic Soviet Union but his policies ended up destroying the union & creating Democratic Russia & other independent post-soviet States. Vladislav Zubok in his book A failed empire has made an interesting and very correct comparison of Gorbachev with MK Gandhi, a key founding father of independent India. I also read Zubok’s book Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union and insight I get about Gorbachev does indeed show a parallel between his thinking and to that of Gandhi & other Indian political leaders like Nehru. Gorbachev and Indian founding fathers like Gandhi, Nehru were disciples of Classical theory of Democracy.

Gorbachev and Gandhi were dreamers - they believed in Utopias and idealistic universal vision of the world. They believed that a society of justice, equality, nonviolence, openness can be created by Democracy. Western developed societies greatly advanced under Democracy so why can’t Soviet Union and India? Such was their thinking (Gandhi’s thinking was actually even inferior to Gorbachev as Gandhi only preached morality without any concrete developmental ideas). Recall that Deng Xiaoping regarded Gorbachev as a fool. I regard Gandhi & Nehru as fools who sowed seeds of India’s degradation by building a failed and unworkable political model of independent India.

I’ve written extensively about Democracy and explained how India is incompatible with Democracy (read 1, 2, 3, 4). Similarly, Russia was not conducive to democracy, at least not in a way Gorbachev intended it to be. Gorbachev wanted to convert Soviet Union into a Democracy & a market economy through a political & economic shock therapy which ended up as a catastrophe for post-Soviet Russia.

Indian founding fathers were fools who believed that political model of Democracy can be imported from abroad and implemented locally. Gorbachev was similarly a fool who thought of Democratizing soviet union and making it work like western nations. Surely, Soviet Union needed political and economic reforms but not of the type and in ways in which Gorbachev carried them out. In contrast, China carried out reforms very differently in 70s and 80s. China reformed it’s economy tremendously in qualitative & quantitative manners although after witnessing the chaotic breakdown in Democratic reform of Soviet Union, China never thought of experimenting with Democracy & universal suffrage, perhaps correctly so.

Schumpeter’s thesis is an excellent analysis of Democracy. There are two ways of understanding Democracy. One is the idealistic way - the classical way - of understanding democracy. It’s an idealistic Utopian way of Democracy, a philosophy of how Democracy ought to be. Many political thinkers, intellectuals and activists understand Democracy only through classical viewpoint. So did Nehru, Gandhi & Gorbachev. But then there’s really existing democracy - a way in which democracy actually works in reality. This is a heterodox and a realistic view of democracy. Schumpeter’s describe both views of democracy in detail.

Schumpeter also described that democracy may work even under classical tenets provided that there is a conducive environment for it. Schumpeter described four requisite for a functional classical Democracy. I’ve explained in my past articles on why a socially & economically backward nation like India doesn’t have these requisites for functioning of democracy. In short - Democracy cannot work in a country like India. Ignoring the ground reality, if you try to implement democracy in India, you will get a failed political system. That’s what India turned out to be.

Soviet Union suffered the same fate. The experiments of perestroika and Glasnost opened Pandora’s box for nationalism, political fragmentation and dissolution which destroyed the Soviet union. Thereafter, the experiment of democracy in post-soviet Russia created a Kakistocracy & a Kleptocracy where the most incompetent and most corrupted crooks took over the political system. Intelligent, visionary and moral people had no mobility in this failed system. Klebnikov describes this in detail in his book. The end result was that Russia became a Gangster State.

So is the case for India. Most Indian intellectuals and activists are fools just like founding fathers. They don’t understand heterodox theory of Democracy and how Indian constitution is a failed project. They keep yelping about saving democracy, free & fair elections, cleaning up politics etc without knowing that Democracy is an unworkable system in India. Of course, there is no easy answer to what alternative social contract & political model is befitting to India. But why should India seek to apply a particular model as a universal ‘one size fits all’ approach? China built itself with a lot of experimentation and pragmatism in last 5 decades. Perhaps India needs a similar approach of reforming its political & economic system.

Book by Isabella Weber illustrates how Chinese economy evolved through experimental reforms and extensive deliberations among technocrats

Apart from failure of domestic political reform. The Utopian vision of international policy & co-operation also turned out to be failure for Gorbachev and Nehru. Gorbachev thought that once cold war was over and Soviet Union democratized, the military rivalry of superpowers will come to an end. But after democratization of Russia and end of cold war, NATO continued to expand eastwards and inducted former soviet states in the alliance. This is contrary to oral promise where US said that NATO alliance won’t expand eastwards.

The Neoliberal reforms as proposed by US economic experts were also a recipe for disaster for Russia. Even still, Russia expected US financial aid from America to jump-start its market economy initiative. But no financial aid ever came. Even Neoliberals like Jeffery Sachs who were advisers to Russia in transitioning to market economy were disappointed that US never provided a financial aid package to assist the transition. Zubok makes an interesting point that in the 90s, there was a good chance to incorporate Russia into common European security architecture and European common market. But US & Europe were not interested.

In India, Nehru also believed in Utopia of international policy, global justice and co-operation. One of the signature policy of Nehru was brotherhood of nations who have been victims of imperialism. China which was a victim of colonial imperialism was thus seen favorably by Nehru. But attack by China and capturing of Indian territory came as a brutal shock to Nehru from which he never recovered psychologically (China occupies the captured territory of India ever since). Similarly, there were other foreign policy failures of Nehru. The consequences of all that was that India after Independence lost territory to its two immediate neighbors, China & Pakistan, and got tied up in conflicts forever.

The Utopian Internationalist vision of Democracy and idealistic political equality turned out to be disasters for Gorbachev and Indian founding fathers. Today, most Indian activists keep digging deeper holes. They are fed up with really existing democracy and so they demand Utopian idealistic democracy. This won’t get them anywhere. The starting point of debate on reforming India should be recognition that its entire political model has failed. Politicians like Modi, Shah, Rahul Gandhi, Nitish Kumar etc & political parties like BJP are endogenous variables of this failed political model.