THE understanding of states in transition involves a telling of stories. Each of these stories requires a given or an imputed starting point, a real or an imagined end point, and a horizon of expectation. Moreover, we get a better sense of the transition in each state if we expand the time horizon of the story and read it along with stories from other states.

This is what the present essay attempts. It offers a story of the changing nature of the Indian State as seen from the prism of the states. This is the story of an ongoing contestation between the logic of democracy and the logic of dominance. It is woven around significant transitions taking place at three principal sites of contestation: party politics, caste relations and democratic governance. The essay tries to map the necessarily complex trends and patterns of these multiple transitions across the states. A journey through these complexities serves to draw our attention to a general development. We are witnessing the rise of a State that combines selective delivery and high rent seeking with majoritarian mobilization and political convergence.

The proposal to view the Indian State through the prism of states is likely to raise some eyebrows. The dominant tendency is to view the Indian State largely through the prism of national political power at the centre. This tendency may, however, contain a fundamental misreading of the historical logic of the constitution of the Indian State. A large-scale polity like India has always been organized on the principle of subsumption: the higher level of political authority may force some reshaping of the nature of social and political power at the lower level, but more than that, it simply presides over the given arrangement by subsuming and aggregating the local arrangements.

An inquiry into the nature of political power and its relationship with social power must therefore look carefully at the primary site of this relationship. In contemporary India, this primary site is state politics. True, the logic of subsumption works sometimes below the level of the state as well, but as a rule the reconstitution of power at the lower levels is framed by the dominant configuration at the state level. An understanding of the contestation between the logic of democracy and the logic of dominance requires a comparison of what this contestation looks like across different Indian states.

 

The nature of the Indian State has been shaped by a contestation between the logic of democracy and the logic of domination. On one hand, the logic of democracy helped open up the possibility of a popular, responsive and accountable government that would deliver on the promise of governance, development and a levelling of hierarchies in a deeply unequal society. This was not just a normative ideal evolved through the freedom movement and the various struggles for equality accompanying it. The promise of democracy was underwritten by universal adult franchise and the mechanism of open political competition and free and fair elections. Under conditions of an informed citizenry, a free media and a level playing ground for political competition, the democratic political mechanism was expected to create a political will on the part of the rulers to deliver what the citizens expected them to do.

In a society where an overwhelming majority of the electors are poor, democratic politics was expected to direct state power towards a redistribution of resources and enhance access to basic goods and services for the poor. In this sense, the logic of democracy has in it an ingrained transformative element. In the Indian context, the idea of transformation was built much more consciously in both the institutions and practices of democracy.

The logic of domination, on the other hand, points in the opposite direction. This too, is not something peculiar to India: asymmetries of power always mean a differential access to decision-making for different sections of society. In the Indian case, the logic of domination too developed a a specific character. Pre-existing inequalities – caste, class and gender – sought to preserve and reinforce themselves with the help of political power. The caste inequalities gave shape and strength to both class and gender inequalities, leading to heated debates about which of the three constitutes a primary grid of domination. The Brahminic social order sought to perpetuate itself by building on the educational and cultural capital of the ‘upper’ castes and occupy strategic locations within the state apparatus.

 

The dominant castes sought to use land holding, social status and numeric power to leverage state power. Entrenched economic interests – old and new capital, big business and landlords and the salaried class in the organized sector – endeavoured to protect their position by containing and controlling the political class. Patriarchy tended to reproduce itself, both in the public and so-called private spheres, by effectively isolating gender relations from the democratic impulse. Overall, the logic of domination worked to preserve the status quo, if not accentuate inherited privileges. It undermined the unfolding of the logic of democracy or at least constrained that unfoldment ever so often. The logic of domination is a constant threat to the logic of democracy.

It is tempting to read the history of the Indian State as reflecting an inevitable and final triumph of either the logic of status quo or of democratic transformation. The ubiquitous presence of extreme inequalities and stark exclusions far too readily leads us into a story of domination that has reduced democracy to a sham. This story carries an overpowering appeal for radical activists or sensitive citizens. At the same time, there is a lot in the current situation to encourage a contrary view of a slow, unsteady, but eventually sure march of the spirit of democracy that would overcome inequalities and exclusions. Such a view need not draw upon an irrational optimism; it equally appeals to analytical sensibilities that search for underlying patterns and long-term trends.

A study of the Indian State, especially when viewed from the vantage point of states in India, does not affirm either of these two stories. What we have, instead, is an uneasy but enduring co-existence of the logic of democracy with the logic of domination. Barring a few exceptions, the Indian State is democratic in a non-trivial sense: regimes do get thrown out fairly regularly, rulers live in considerable anxiety, public opinion does matter. At the same time, domination has neither disappeared, nor does it survive only episodically. Domination along caste, class and gender axes exists as a systemic attribute of contemporary Indian society.

This co-existence is in no way harmonious. The transformative logic of democracy erupts ever so often to threaten entrenched interests. The logic of domination is all about taming democracy and rendering it harmless. Nor is this contestation settled. The changing nature of the Indian State reflects the ever shifting equation in this contestation, deeply contingent, yet patterned.

 

If the character of the state is shaped by the relationship of political power to social power, we can understand state power by asking three sets of questions. One, who gets to wield political power within a democratic dispensation? What relationship do the democratically elected rulers have with the groups who enjoy social and economic dominance? How has the linkage between social and political power transformed as a result of democratic politics? Two, what are the outcomes of the working of democracy for different social groups? To what extent does the state fulfil the minimal expectation of ordinary citizens as regards development and governance? In what ways does the democratic state work towards reducing economic inequality and social dominance? And three, how does the menu of political choices get shaped? Do the people get a broad and sufficiently differentiated menu to choose from? Do the entrenched social groups get to delimit the menu of political choice? Accordingly, we can focus on three arenas or sites of contestation between the logic of democracy and the logic of domination.

 

The first site concerns the reproduction or otherwise of social power into political power. A convenient though necessarily selective way to map this site is to focus on the relationship between caste and state power. A look across the states reveals various patterns. There is a category of states where the ritually superior castes continue to dominate positions of political power even today. Brahmin-Rajput dominance in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, aided no doubt by the numeric strength of these castes in the above mentioned hill states, appears to be a neat illustration of the linkage between ritual and political hierarchy.

The social composition of political power is similar in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, though dwija dominance is tempered by the limited entry of Jats in Rajasthan, OBCs in Madhya Pradesh, and Adivasis in Chhattisgarh. West Bengal too squarely falls in this category, the three decades of communist rule effectively halting the transfer of power from upper caste and consolidating the political power of the Brahmin-Boidya-Kayastha bloc.

 

Most other states have made a transition from the days of upper caste dominance, though the transfer of power has not percolated all the way down the rungs of the caste hierarchy. We thus witness a limited transition of power from the upper castes to non-dwija ‘middle’ castes, mostly landed peasantry. The Reddy-Kamma rivalry still dominates Andhra politics, despite a marginal increase in OBC and dalit visibility. The dominance of Vokalliggas and Lingayats in Karnataka politics similarly eclipses lower OBCs and the rest. The stranglehold of Jats in Haryana and Punjab and Marathas in Maharashtra illustrates the dominance of the numerically preponderant and socially well-heeled community. Though the Patidars in Gujarat do not come close to exercising that kind of dominance, they reflect the same tendency, as does the dominance of Metieis in Manipur and the Nepalese in Sikkim.

In a small number of cases, the logic of transfer of power has moved below the middle castes, even if partially. Political fragmentation has helped less numeric and weaker castes to claim a share in Kerala and Tamil Nadu; ethnic fragmentation has produced a similar outcome in Assam and Jharkhand. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar present an unusual combination of all the three stages. There are traces of upper caste dominance as the twice-born are still over-represented in the assemblies, a significant share of power for the Yadavs in both the states and Kurmis in Bihar, and a beginning of the entry of the lower orders in the form of dalits in UP and the lower OBCs in Bihar.

 All in all, this arena has witnessed a lot of action driven largely by the politics of aspiration, as expressed through mobilizations around identity and a desire to see a presence of the community in places of power. But in most part, ritual hierarchy does not directly or easily translate into political power. In the states where it still does, it will face serious challenge in the years to come. But this does not apply to the dominance of the middle castes; it would be a mistake to see their dominance as a transitional mid-way house. In most of the cases, this dominance is fairly stable and in some cases like Karnataka, Gujarat and Haryana, it reflects a roll-back from earlier successful attempts at taking the process of power sharing downwards. At this moment it is difficult to rule out a future similar roll-back in states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. In other words, the first transition away from upper caste monopoly has been made or is likely, but the next transition to the lower social order faces serious roadblocks.

 

The transition is limited in another dimension too. There are few signs of transition from a politics of presence to one of substantive representation of the demands, interests and needs of the hitherto excluded groups. A politics of presence is often based on, and in turn produces, the idea of a majority. Claims to power are usually made on grounds of numeric strength. This applies as much to the Adivasi communities in the North East, as to middle peasant castes in Haryana or Maharashtra. The majority principle invoked in the defence of the first transition subsequently becomes a stumbling block for power sharing with less numeric castes and communities such as dalits, lower OBCs, Muslims or smaller Adivasi communities. The logic of dominance subverts the logic of democracy by reducing it to majoritarianism.

The second arena is that of the political economy of development. The logic of democracy would indicate a redistributive impulse; the logic of dominance would suggest a consolidation of privileges and rent seeking by political and administrative office holders. There are two dimensions to be mapped here. One axis maps the delivery of basic goods and services to the population. This may range from virtually non-existent delivery in states like Jharkhand (and Bihar, till recently) to a proper welfare state, still to become a reality anywhere, where all citizens can access the basic provisions for dignified living. The other axis maps a variety of rent seeking practices, ranging from petty everyday corruption to selective high level graft and finally, to open loot from top to bottom. While the issue of delivery is related to the willingness of the materially dominant classes to agree to a sharing of resources with the public, even if limited, the issue of graft is related to the partnership of the politico-administrative class with the dominant classes.

 

Mapping both these axes on a grid enables us to plot different states on a continuum. At one extreme we have a small group of failures like Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, characterized by low delivery and high rent from top to bottom. However, most states have of late graduated from this extreme category. An improvement in the fiscal condition of most state governments over the last decade has meant more resources for basic welfare provisions. Simultaneously, the rise of a genuinely multi-party system in most states, and the frequent rejection of incumbent governments between 1989 and 1999, brought home to the rulers the importance of ensuring some delivery. But the range of the deliverables has been narrowed down to a selected few items: basic infrastructure like electricity, water and road (the famous BSP of elections) and some highly visible and populist welfare schemes like subsidized ration, old age pension, and so on.

 

The rulers have also realized that petty corruption that directly affects ordinary citizens is not worth it. So, to the extent that they can control it (this may be very limited in most cases), they try and shift from all pervasive corruption to targeted rent seeking from high-yield sectors like mines, land and real estate. This provides an opportunity to combine selective delivery with a high degree of rent seeking not incompatible with popular approval. The YSR regime in Andhra Pradesh provided an apt illustration of this possibility. Most other regimes do not match up to this model, but they belong to the same category.

Thus, for instance, Karnataka and Jharkhand have demonstrated the brazen collusion of state power with the mining industry; Orissa and Chhattisgarh have seen mining being supplemented with forest land and industrial expansion as sources of primitive accumulation. In the more urbanized states like Maharashtra, it is the construction industry more than anything else, while conversion of agricultural into urban land is the name of the game in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. In Tamil Nadu, control over media is both a means and an end of high-level political corruption. Rent seeking by the political class is not new, nor are the preferred routes. What is somewhat new is the strategy of combining selective and publicized delivery with up-scaled and targeted graft.

This often involves populist measures that are targeted at specific vulnerable sections to enable the rulers to cultivate them as the dependable voters. But rulers cannot engage in mindless populism. In most cases, the pattern seems to be a nuanced linking of populism with infrastructure delivery. Yet, even while deprivation and poverty are not effectively addressed, there is simultaneously an increasing, more assertive and demanding middle class. Consequently, political parties feel pressured to take both ends of the expectations – from the poor and from the middle class – into account. The former cannot be ignored because of their numerical preponderance and the latter because of their strategic importance. The politics of the National Capital Region of Delhi could serve as a textbook illustration here.

Both these developments – stakes in delivery and stakes in rent seeking – are more visible at the state than the national level, even though the more recent scandals involving rent seeking, the 2G spectrum scandal for instance, are related to the national level of governance. Yet, the states provide us with a more convenient stage for observation, if nothing else, for the sheer rawness and directness of most rent seeking transactions (as in Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Karnataka) and the political skills employed for ensuring delivery, howsoever selectively (as in Bihar of late or Andhra Pradesh till recently).

 

The third site of contestation between the logics of democracy and domination is the arena of electoral competition. Here too we can map the range of choices on a grid with two axes: format of political competition and the nature of political choices. The format of competition varies from single party dominance to multi-party competition. The availability or otherwise of party political choices in the electoral arena, however, is different from the existence of meaningful policy choices. The axis of choice ranges from a virtual absence of options to substantive options to choose from.

Plotted on this grid, the arena of electoral and competitive politics offers wider but shallower options. At the state level, several factors contribute to a widening of choices. For instance, the configuration of social power in a given state affects the menu of choices. As new social groups enter the arena of competitive politics, they either force a new agenda onto existing political parties or sometimes produce their own political vehicles which, at least temporarily, go beyond the existing menu of choices and float new issues. The compulsions of electoral politics also prompts the new parties to take up positions that unsettle the pre-existing menus. Fresh choices may also emerge from internal competition among entrenched interests.

 

A combination of these factors sometimes gives rise to substantive choices at the state level, a period when the logic of domination is temporarily challenged. This moment of triumph raises the expectations flowing from the logic of democracy. It also produces an effect on the second arena discussed above – delivery and governance. Historically, one party dominance in most states has proved detrimental to delivery of basic goods and services; the opening up of political competition meant greater availability of substantive choices. For instance, when the Left Front wrested power from the Congress in West Bengal, it did present voters with a substantive choice. Something similar happened in Uttar Pradesh when Charan Singh ruptured the Congress monopoly over the state, or in Tamil Nadu, when the DMK first came to power.

In the last quarter of a century, many states have witnessed such moments of choice: Andhra Pradesh (victory of NTR’s TDP and later the rise of TRS in the Telangana region), Karnataka (the rise of JD/Lok Shakti and then BJP), Uttar Pradesh (the near simultaneous rise of the BJP, SP and then BSP), Bihar (the rise to power of the JD/RJD and then Samata/JDU), West Bengal (the rise of Trinamool Congress), and Assam (the conversion of Assam movement into the AGP). Many of these developments took place from 1989 to 2000, a period generating a heightened expectation that India’s party system might produce greater choice than is common for most representative democracies. However, multi-party competition rapidly succumbed to the logic of convergence such that major political formations at the national and the state level began to resemble one another, losing any distinctness in their political platforms. This convergence was further accentuated by the fact that most parties adopted a similar strategy for accommodating the newly emerging OBC leadership. Thus, not only in policy but in terms of the social profile of personnel too, parties began to resemble one another.

 

The logic of convergence cuts across various types of party competition. In Karnataka, multi-polar competition has so far failed to produce any positive effect on the delivery grid; nor has it further deepened the transition of power. If anything, multi-polar competition in Karnataka has only strengthened the grip of rent seeking. In Bihar, a bipolar divergence has led to positive effects on both these dimensions: some expansion of the social basis of power and an improvement in the environment of delivery. In UP, the multi-polarity of political competition is, like Bihar, based on and therefore strengthens a transition of power. But unlike Bihar, that has not yet resulted in any ostensible improvement in the record of delivery. West Bengal is unlikely to witness any substantial transition of power from upper social sections. At the same time, the rise of a strong competitor to the Left Front has already sharpened the focus on delivery issues.

 

Needless to say, political competition or multi-polarity, in itself (without availability of substantive choices), cannot be a harbinger of any meaningful transition. Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra are instances of this. Over the past three decades or more, Rajasthan and Gujarat have witnessed competitive bipolarity without the emergence of substantive choices. If at all, bipolarity has ensured a closure of issue-competition in these states. Maharashtra too witnessed the rise of more competitive politics, first in the seventies and again from the late eighties. But at neither of these points did the state experience a drastic revision in the menu of choices. Therefore, more than the format or structure of competition, it is the presence or absence of choice that should be the defining criterion in deciding whether or not the logic of democracy is unfolding.

Thus, while we have moved a long way from a system of hegemony, marked by one party domination (as West Bengal moves out of this category, Sikkim and perhaps Arunachal Pradesh may be the only states without any effective political choice), this move is not matched by an expansion of political choices. Most states can be fitted into the categories of bipolar or multi-polar convergence. The format of political competition offers more than one effective choice, but in policies and programmes there is little to choose from. It seems as if the era that inaugurated moments of substantive policy choice has come to an end.

 

In order to get a better sense of the interlocking of the logics of democracy and domination along the three sites discussed above, it may be instructive to look at the way in which social power, delivery of public goods and services and political choice configure in different states. The point to be noted is that the logic of domination governs the delivery dimension; the logic of democracy occasionally enhances choices and often produces transition in social bases of power. Each state, of course, has a different route through which it traverses this terrain.

If we go by shifts in social bases of power, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Orissa and West Bengal are some of the states which have witnessed the least degree of transition. But their record on delivery is not identical. In Punjab, a transition towards improved delivery of select popular items has taken place, while in Haryana that transition has been underway for some time now. After a good start, the Left Front government in West Bengal presided over a reverse transition towards a worsening situation, while Orissa is still trapped in poor delivery of basic public goods and services. All these four states also reflect a narrow range of political choices, though the rise of the Trinamool Congress indicates some possibility of expansion in political choices in West Bengal.

Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra are states which saw some power transition early on in the ‘sixties, but failed to take that transition further. All these states nevertheless have a moderate delivery record, though both Maharashtra and Karnataka appear set for a reversal on this front. Gujarat and Maharashtra are firmly moving towards a shrinking of choice while Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh may witness a limited expansion. In all these states, the contest between democratic logic and domination logic seems to be moving in a see-saw manner.

Kerala and Tamil Nadu are two states where the transition of power went somewhat beyond the middle peasant castes. In both states, however, this transition seems to have hit a dead-end. Both had a better delivery record compared to other states, but this too now appears to be stagnating or facing reversal. In terms of choices too, Tamil Nadu and Kerala could boast of a substantive menu of options in the ‘sixties – an attribute that they have now lost despite an expansion in the party system in Tamil Nadu. These two states may therefore be seen as instances of an initial ascendance of democratic logic, but where the logic of domination subsequently gained an upper hand.

 

Bihar, UP and Madhya Pradesh are states with a history of belated power transition. Of the three, this transition was the weakest in MP and has subsequently got further arrested. All these states have also had a less than happy record of delivery. But as mentioned above, Bihar seems to have crossed the threshold of non-delivery and MP too has overcome its history of non-performance. While MP is devoid of substantial political choice, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh continue to hold the promise of choice. These three states, for different reasons, occupy the space of hope – in spite of historical odds, they are not stories of the failure of democratic logic. In fact, given the unevenness of the tussle between democracy and domination in these states, the outcome – or awaited outcome – indicates possibilities for democracy.

The tussle between these two logics also throws up areas of concern. Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, and much of North East invite serious concern, for reasons that are different from one another. Though Delhi might just be a good case of transition to delivery and performance, the delicate balance that it has to strike between services for the poor and an appeasement of the middle class portends tension in the content of governance and delivery in the long run. Also, Delhi represents a case of weak social transition, powerful economic vested interests and a fixed menu of political choice.

 

Uttarakhand too did not experience any significant social transition of power. With the state sliding back into a two-party choice mode and an unsatisfactory delivery record, it constitutes yet another area of concern. Jharkhand has earned notoriety for being a state that best exemplifies the crass exploitative and rapacious character of the dominant classes. With a very weak social transition and chaotic political competition that is devoid of choice, Jharkhand represents the most dangerous face of the logic of domination.

Jammu and Kashmir and Nagaland represent the failure in applying the logic of democracy. But more than a failure of democracy per se, these states reflect the failure of the Indian State in not allowing an adequate unfolding of logic of democracy. As a result, they represent the coercive dimension of the Indian State. The same dimension appears to have extended to Manipur. These states may constitute instances where the national rather than the state level has shaped the overall direction of political developments.

In states like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa, control of natural resources and forest land constitute the main issue rather than mere delivery of goods and services. Since this is the primary arena of expropriation, both the level of convergence and of rent seeking are high and visible. Even elsewhere, Maharashtra for instance, the issue of land acquisition has become central to the contest between democracy and domination. It is common to view such expropriations and struggles over issues of land and natural resources as a setback to democracy. These could also be seen as indicating the limits of democracy as it is practiced within a frame of domination.

 

The contestation between the logic of democracy and the logic of dominance takes a specific path in countries like India. Democracies in the West did not have to squarely face the complication of making democratic choices over issues of resources. These choices were made mostly in pre-democratic or sub-democratic conditions and most western countries emerged as democracies only after a cruel resolution of the issue of control over resources. They turned to democratic governance only after settling the dispute between industry and agriculture. Since that is not the case with India, the contestation here is likely to be more complex as dominant communities and classes are bound to intervene in the democratic process and seek to control the state apparatus. This is possibly why in some states the tension between these two logics is so visible and intractable.

This tension has two consequences. One, of course, is rent seeking. Through this, the politico-administrative class gets directly tied to private interests. This crudity of partisanship and directness of the nexus in many ways defines the character of the contemporary Indian State. This is a clear departure from the early post independence Indian State where the ambition was to shape a social contract around the project of ‘Development’. Even that ambition now seems to have been abandoned with the ideological link between ‘development’ and ‘public interest’ becoming tenuous. This situation both allows and requires that the dominant interests express and realize themselves in the local context by exercising instrumental control over and using coercive measures in collusion with the governing elite of the respective states.

The second effect of the tension is non-performance or non-delivery. Performance or delivery presupposes a shaping of consensus over minimum well-being. In states where the tension between democracy and domination is high, where the crudity of the nexus is obvious, and the capacity of the dominant interests to accommodate public interest is low, state governments are left with limited options for acting autonomously from dominant interests. In such situations, they abdicate the responsibility of governance and instead serve as the executive bodies of dominant interests.

 

The Indian State could thus be understood as a site of multiple contestations and aspirations. The states in turn become the sites where the contestations unfold, take concrete politico-economic form and play themselves out. It is clear that neither of these two logics is likely to triumph: the Indian State is unlikely to usher in democracy shorn of domination; nor is it likely to become non-democratic, as the radical critics occasionally fear. Therefore, the states will continue to be sites of the battle – tilting towards dominant interests today, upholding democracy tomorrow.

Overall, the trends indicate a stagnation of the shift in social dominance – in part because it was only symbolic, burdened more by the logic of presence than representation. Similarly, while most states appear to be more sensitive to concerns of delivery, the process remains both selective and comes accompanied with a spike in high-end rent seeking. In terms of political choices, there is a discernible tendency towards bipolar or multi-polar convergence. Generally, however, political choice does not seem to affect delivery transition; nor does it seem capable of sustaining the momentum of a power transition.

 

Equally, shifts in social power do not have any discernible correlation with better delivery. In other words, the transition towards better delivery takes place independent of a social transition in configurations of power. This suggests that while democratic politics and enhanced political choice do facilitate a transition in social power, in themselves they do not drive a delivery transition. The transition in delivery of goods and services is driven mostly by imperatives of state power and the logic of domination rather than by democratic logic.

So, irrespective of what configurations are thrown up by the democratic logic of choice and power transition, these may not be very relevant to delivery and domination. When the requirements of political choice or power transition clash with delivery transition, there is a churning and instability, indications of political reconfigurations at the state level. But it is not clear if the regime changes or political transitions currently taking place in the various states have any potential for reshaping the inconclusive but ongoing contestation between democracy and domination.