"The Status of the State Machinery in India"

by Monis Nabi 

 Published In Aligarh magazine. 

On the 15th of August 1947, India finally achieved its freedom from British rule through the joint efforts of many political parties, like the Indian National Congress, and by the beginning of the year 1950, the Indian Constitution was in its full effect. However, these secular democratic political parties were not alone in the freedom struggle; there were various other movements and radical socialist organisations too, some of them being Silk letter movement and the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), previously known as the Hindustan Republican Army and Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), which played a role in the independence of the country.

At last the country got its independence from the colonisers. When the movements led by the Indian National Congress were in full flow, there was no other political faction that could challenge the British, like the Congress. Hence after the independence, there was no political party which could rival the Congress Party in the general elections, when the country opted for a democratic system. The term federal was not used in the preamble of India, but according to many leaders, India did have federal attributes in its political system, though not much power was distributed among state governments. Even after the demonstration of such democratic quality in India, there were a multitude of problems which undermined its democratic features.

Before completely evacuating from India, British government decided to divide the Indian subcontinent in two parts i.e. India and Pakistan: as per the demands of Muslim League, areas with majority of Muslims were to be given to Pakistan, and the rest would stay with India, and the matter of princely states (former vessel state of British Empire) were given three choices; to join India, Pakistan, or to stay independent.

The problem arose when the state of Hyderabad, the largest princely state in the centre of the subcontinent, decided to stay independent. Now this choice, by the Nizam of Hyderabad, proved to be a hindrance to the dream of United India, the dream of most of the central Indian freedom fighters. And then came the signing of the Instrument of Accession, and the dethronement of the Nizam in the following years. The view that was taken by the Indian government to justify this Instrument of Accession was that the Razakars i.e. the army of the Nizam, and the Nizam himself was complicit in the oppression of their minorities. The support for an independent Hyderabad came from two countries, namely Argentina and Syria; the state in 1956 was dissolved by the Indian Government, and the report of Sunderlal Committee was kept confidential. This was one of the most talked about actions of the Indian government, after independence.

Even as the leader of the non-cooperation movement, India had warm ties with the USSR and until its disintegration, the government's policies were up to a large extent influenced by socialist ideas. The Bofors Scandal by the government itself was proof that the influence of the Western industries had entered India, which may prove to be harmful for democracy. But the year 1991 changed everything when India decided to open their market for foreign investors. The problem here was that India did not open the markets gradually like its socialist neighbour China, instead it was a sudden change as India was losing its foreign reserves, and now the country was in danger of getting influenced by the Western corporations, and the Indian ones which had become quite large and just required liberal laws, became giants like any other MNC.

With lots of corporations rising, government intervention was required more and more, but the change in the ruling parties and the changing of geopolitical order after the disintegration of the USSR was pushing India away from left wing politics with a large number of support garnering towards right wing parties. The country's allegiance shifted from the USSR to the new sole supreme power on earth, the United States of America.

Indian politics by the late 1990s was getting dominated by right wing ideologies. Another example of the decline in democratic features of India was when the riots in Gujarat happened and were handled in an inappropriate manner by the authorities; cases of avoidable casualties emerged and police seemed to be working for the sake of face saving.

This incompetent behaviour of the law enforcement agencies, led to heavy losses when the attack of 26/11 happened, and over hundred people lost their lives. This attack was horrible but not unanticipated, as Josy Joseph in his book, 'The Silent Coup' tells us, "For several months before November 2008, the Maharashtra police had received a flurry of alerts from central intelligence agencies about an imminent attack."

But these alerts remained unheeded; another shocking thing is the amount of time it took for the Indian government to deal with such a terror attack. It looked like the police were not ready for such a thing, all they had was some riot gear.

If we examine the history of Indian Police, we see the number of times that the police and other responsible authorities were unable to handle the situation during a crisis, and the reason for this does not lie in the Indian constitution. For this, we have to go back in time, when the revolt of 1857 took place, and it shook the British government like never before. It was then the government decided to make sure that the role of the police must be to suppress any form of dissent, and then introduced the Police Act of 1861, and since then it continues to be in effect, though with some form of variations. And this Indian police is seen more effective in dispersing any kind of political protest, than to deal with a situation that endangers the interests of the masses.

So, what we see here is an example of how a state that was freed from the rule of few people, by the masses, can be ruled by few. and all the power dynamics of the state are structured in a form to serve the interests of a few elites. Although many civil movements in the history of India took place which helped to restore the democracy brought to us by our freedom fighters. A fine example of this is the Right To Information Act (RTI), and the Public Interest Litigation which has helped democracy become more transparent.

To get rid of the colonial legacy of police brutality, steps were taken by the government, and The Sorabjee Committee under the chairmanship of Shri Soli Sorabjee, to replace the Police Act of 1861, which had seven directives which could make police a neutral force to a great extent, if implemented. It could have shown positive results, but what we saw is that even after fourteen years, in the year 2020, an assessment by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative showed that not a single state had fully implemented these directives. So, to erase the biased behaviour in the authorities this act is necessary to implement. And there were many efforts by the people to legitimise the term democracy for India, but all of them went in vain, hence we need to educate ourselves about these efforts because as the citizens of India, it's our responsibility to ensure its freedom from the few.

Only then we will be able to achieve the 'Real Swaraj' about which M.K. Gandhi said, "Real Swaraj will come not by the acquisition of authority by a few but by the acquisition of the capacity by all to resist authority when it is abused. In other words, Swaraj is to be obtained by educating the masses to a sense of their capacity to regulate and control authority."

References

1. Joseph, Josy. The Silent Coup: A History of India's Deep State. India, Westland Publications Private Limited, 2021.

2. Hashmi, S. A. Hyderabad 1948: An Avoidable Invasion. Pharos Media & Publishing Pvt Limited, 2017, https://books.google.co.in/books?id=mtaGtAEACAAJ.