Editor's Note

For the fifth publication of the ADRN special working paper series, Dr. Kaustuv Kanti Bandyopadhyay and Mr. Kaustuv Chakrabarti of the Participatory Research in Asia study the populist phenomenon in India and its impact on Indian politics. They note that this movement, contrary to other cases of populism around the world, refers to "virtually any policy that is redistributive in nature... particularly when a policy is announced before impending elections." With this condition, Dr. Bandyopadhyay and Mr. Chakrabarti argue that populist decisions "can become more responsible and at the same time more irresponsible." The authors conclude that in order to bring an end to irresponsible and fiscally concerning decisions, civil society needs to "engage with the citizens" to "counter majoritarian populism."

Quotes from the Paper

Introduction                  

In recent times we see populism all around us, but its precise definition remains elusive. From a democratic point of view, the ambivalence is already apparent in the term “populism.” Its root is the Latin word populus (the people), which exhibits a clear link with the democratic idea. Where there is democracy, in other words, there is always populism. On the other hand, the suffix “ism” signals an ideological potentiation in contrast to the moderate character of today’s democracies. By exaggerating the democratic element and mobilizing it against the constraints introduced into democratic systems by constitutional principles, populism moves at least potentially into the proximity of opponents of the system.

History and the Rise of Populism in India

Since the late nineteenth century, populism has played a vital role in different phases of Indian history, particularly in mobilizing emergent groups and bringing about different movements and civil society initiatives. Populism has co-existed with several different ideological strands, and yet influenced a range of policies with its discourses and mobilization.

Populist Measures in India

India is an example that proves economic liberalization can co-exist with populist politics and that populism can be used as an ideological framework within which the political contradictions that follow from economic change can be managed. The capaciousness of populism allows for a range of interests, some of them conflicting, to be acknowledged in both symbolic and practical ways.

Case Study 1: Guaranteeing Wage Employment in Rural India

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is a social security measure that guarantees the “right to work” to Indian rural citizens. The scheme provides a legal guarantee for at least one hundred days of employment in every financial year to the adult members of any rural household willing to do public works-related unskilled manual labor at the statutory minimum wage.

Case Study 2: Providing Subsidized Cooked Food in Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu’s political history for the past four decades has been characterized by a slew of populist measures. The laundry list of freebies handed out by the late Jayalalithaa included the waiver of all farm loans, free laptops for Class X and XII students, free cell phones for all ration card holders, and government reimbursement of education loans.

Case Study 3: Free Laptops to the Students of Uttar Pradesh (UP)

With nearly 200 million people, UP remains the most populous Indian state. It ranks sixteenth among the seventeen Indian states according to the 2015 Human Development report. According to Sen and Ray, UP continues to be counted among the BIMARU states while others, such as Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, have come out of it. The crisis in education is especially apparent in the four BIMARU states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh – with 445.1 million of India’s population of 1.2 billion and some of the lowest literacy rates in the country, according to the 2011 Census.

Case Study 4: Demonetization

The issue of corruption has long been a feature of the BJP’s electoral mobilization against the Congress. An opinion poll of 19,000 respondents conducted in mid-2013 found that 69 percent of respondents thought that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was corrupt and that corruption had increased under the UPA’s rule, while only 23 percent thought that corruption had increased under the NDA government. Seeking to capitalize on these perceptions, a key theme in the BJP’s election manifesto was a populist narrative on corruption, according to which a “lack of openness in government and lack of people’s participation had led to concentration of power in a few hands and lack of transparency breeding corruption and nepotism on a massive scale.” Corruption was also “a manifestation of poor governance” and “reflects the bad intentions of those sitting in power.”

Impact of Populist Measures on Democratic Governance

Democratic governance is the range of processes through which a society in pursuit of justice, equality, welfare, and environmental protection reaches a consensus on and implements regulations, human rights, laws, policies, and social structures. In this sense, democratic governance brings to the fore the question of how a society organizes itself to ensure equality of opportunity and equity (social and economic justice) for all citizens.

Positive Implications of Populist Measures

1. One of the most important aspects of MGNREGS is that villagers can rightfully demand employment. The authority is responsible for providing employment in response to demand or providing an employment allowance in the cases where it has failed to meet the employment demand. According to Alam and Alam, it has made a dent in poverty by increasing employment opportunities. During the first year of implementation (2006-2007), in 200 districts, 21 million households were employed and 905 million person days were generated. In 2016-2017, in 686 districts 51 million households were provided employment and 2.35 billion person days were generated. In 2017-2018, 51 million households have been provided employment and 2.3 billion  person days have been generated across the country.

Negative Implications of Populist Measures

Despite many positive outcomes of the MGNREGA, it has been criticized for its poor implementation and leakages. Under the MGNREGA, which was promulgated in 2005, each household is guaranteed 100 days of work every year. On average, each household received only forty-five days of work over the last decade – less than half the guarantee. The IHDS-II surveys report that up to 70 percent of interested poor households did not receive any MGNREGA work between 2004-2005 and 2011-2012. Unemployment allowance has rarely been paid.

Conclusion

Populism does not oppose the democratic system per se; on the contrary, the democratic system needs its support and tools (e.g. elections). As analyzed in this paper, not all forms of populism are necessarily corrosive to democracy. In an unequal society where politics are governed by the interests of the political elite, populism plays an important role in balancing power by introducing citizen participation.

Author’s Biography

Kaustuv Chakrabarti is a senior program officer at PRIA. Currently, Kaustuv works on the issues of civic space, multi-stakeholder partnerships, South-South Cooperation, and building CSO capacities. He has been passionately engaged with PRIA’s work on civic space both at the Asian and South Asian level.  He co-authored Civic space under Siege: experiences from South Asia; the “State of Democracy: India” report, and the synthesis report on “Civic Space in Asia: Emerging Issues and Policy Lessons from Six Asian Countries 2018.” He has a Master’s degree in globalization and development from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex.

Kaustuv Kanti Bandyopadhyay is the director of Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), a pioneer CSO, working on participation, democratic governance and civil society development for more than three decades. He has twenty-five years of professional experience working with universities, research institutions, and CSOs. He serves on the Steering Committee of the Asia Democracy Research Network (ADRN) and the Asia Democracy Network (ADN). He holds a PhD in anthropology for his work with the Parhaiya tribes of Chotanagpur in India.