Is it possible to build a framework for policy and governance based on our own civilisational values?

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By Jayant Sinha & Sanjeev Sanyal


(The question facing the nation: Samudra Manthan, watercolour on silk, Puri)

For India to reach its potential, over a billion people need to pull in the same direction and accept far-reaching changes. History suggests that all successful countries have ultimately relied on a common set of civilisational values to underpin mass coordination. What could these shared ideas be in the Indian context?

The current Western model of liberal democracy and open markets has its roots in the intellectual developments triggered by the Calvinistled Dutch resistance against Spain that led the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England. Under the influence of thinkers like John Locke, the English adopted the Bill of Rights that limited the power of the monarch and guaranteed certain liberties to its citizens. A century later, the ideas of the Enlightenment found their full expression in the US Constitution.

Culture Counts

The Western model’s success, and the Soviet alternative’s collapse, led many to believe that the model was universal. However, the disastrous impact of efforts to impose it on West Asia shows that the model only works in a certain cultural context.

This does not mean there are no alternatives. East Asia has successfully developed using a Confucian approach: the political leadership’s main role is to impose order so that the civil service can deliver public services efficiently. Non-democratic China is the obvious example. But it is also true of countries that have democratic institutions such as Japan and Singapore. From a Western perspective, such systems may appear somehow suspect, but these systems have delivered on objectively measurable performance metrics.

Not all political economy systems succeed. But it appears that the ones that do, are deeply rooted in their civilisational values. When India became a Republic in 1950, it adopted formal institutions derived from the West, but also a socialist political economy dominated by a tiny elite and a centralised bureaucracy. Despite its failures, however, the latter arrangement has never been replaced.

What are the values than can build an Indian alternative? We propose four such values that collectively define an internally consistent belief system for a truly Indian State.

Karma: This term tends to be narrowly associated with the theory of reincarnation, but can be more broadly interpreted to mean that every individual is responsible for his actions. This emphasis on personal responsibility implies a form of individualism but is different from the Western system of rights and entitlements.

Dharma: The word is often narrowly translated to mean religion, but it more broadly means ‘to perform one’s duty’. Applied to the economic and political sphere, it means that both the citizen and the State are obliged to perform certain duties visà-vis each other and society at large. Thus, Dharma ties every actor to a web of duties, which are to be carried out irrespective of personal interest (the exact definition of these obligations varies).

Note how Indian thought ties individual responsibility (karma) with wider obligations (dharma). Thus, the Indian ideal falls somewhere between the atomised individualism of Western liberalism and the Confucian hierarchy of social obligations.

Manthan: The Indian, particularly Hindu, worldview is that the world is naturally chaotic as expressed in Shiva’s tandava. While other societies try to identify an ideal equilibrium or Utopia and define success in terms of achieving it, Indians see churn as the natural state of the world. The churn releases both negative and positive forces, and success is measured by the ability to absorb the negative and adapt to take advantage of the positive.

Churn’s Turn

The idea of churn and ‘creative destruction’ is not unique to Indian thought. But it contrasts with the Confucian ideal of static harmony or the end-state utopia of Marxism. It may explain why Indians have such faith in democracy despite its flaws — it embodies churn within a constitutional framework.

Rule of Law: An important concept in ancient Indian texts is that of Matsyanyaya, or Law of the Fish: the big fish eating the small fish. Rule of law and the strict enforcement of contracts are seen as key to avoiding Matsyanyaya. Indeed, Indian mythology is full of instances where a promise is shown as sacrosanct even if it is personally costly or unfair. The contrasting conduct of Rama and Krishna in the two epics is a memory of an ancient debate on this issue.

In a constantly churning world, therefore, the role of the State is to create a framework where citizens can take responsibility for their lives and carry out their social obligations. This is neither libertarian nor welfarist. Thus, Kautilya’s Arthashastra emphasises the role of the State in providing defence, internal security, infrastructure and rule of law, but simultaneously imposes strict limits on the powers of officials who are seen as inherently corruptible. Note the contrast between the strong but limited Kautilyan State and the existing Nehruvian construct of a weak but all-pervasive State.

We are not making the case that India’s political economy has generally followed these principles. We merely want to illustrate that it is possible to build an intellectual framework for policy and governance based on our civilisational values. An Indian State rooted in our cultural matrix will be able to better harness the energies of the Indian people.

(Sinha is minister of state for civil aviation, and Sanyal is an economist)