By Sandeep Ray
This year, two of the world’s largest democracies, India and Indonesia went to the polls within two months of each other.
The winning candidates could not have been more different.
Indonesia’s president-elect is a young, modest, approachable former
mayor, who won a hard-fought contest by promising transparency and civic
participation in his government. India voted in 63 year-old veteran
politician Narendra Modi – reputed to be a Hindu-nationalist hardliner
with a penchant for big business. His perceived handicap, strong
allegations of complicity in the mass-murder of Muslims in Gujarat in
2002, surprisingly did not prevent his meteoric rise in popularity.
While many are bitterly disappointed at Prime Minister Modi’s
triumph, he won a free and fair election. Perhaps even more perturbing
than Modi’s victory, was the
inevitability that he would win –
every poll before the elections had predicted it. How is it that
Indonesia, only 16 years after the fall of the New Order, was ready to
usher in a model democratic leader, while India, in its 16th general
election since 1951, chose Modi – a man who leaves a lot to be desired
in the realm of secular trust in a country historically polarised by
religion?
Indonesia and India had both pushed to create democratic republics in
the aftermath of independence. But while Nehru’s Five Year Plans
sputtered along slowly, by the late 1950s Sukarno was see-sawing
precariously between democracy and autarchy. The mid-1960s saw the
nation veering sharply away from a democratic destination as the New
Order ascended to power.
India did have its share of anti-democratic spells, most notably
Indira Gandhi’s declaration in 1975 of a national emergency suspending
many basic civic rights. But otherwise the free and secular model had
been generally upheld. And yet in 2014 Indonesia seems to have made a
swift and remarkable comeback from the long Suharto years, while India
has regressed. One might consider a few broad factors to shed light on
this puzzle.
First, for a nation that is frequently and correctly identified as
having the largest Muslim population in the world, religion did not
factor significantly in the Indonesian elections this year. Cornell
University political scientist Tom Pepinsky has conducted longitudinal
studies indicating that all other factors remaining the same, religion
generally
does matter in Indonesian politics – but significantly less so than other considerations such as economy, welfare and corruption.
This changed somewhat in the last years of President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono’s government when extremist Islamist groups were emboldened in
their crusades against Christians, liberal Muslims, Shias and the
Ahmadiyyas.
And collectively, the four big Islamic parties PPP, PKB, PKS and PAN
did make a six per cent gain in the legislative elections in 2014.
Electorally, this however, was not a game changer. In fact, when
Prabowo chose to make an issue of religion by guaranteeing ‘the purity
of religious teachings’ under his rule, it backfired on him and he
hurriedly deleted it from his manifesto. Jokowi sensibly and
successfully steered away from the issue of religion.
In contrast, religion has been the over-bearing tone in Indian
politics this year. With Modi’s recent promises to rid India of ‘its
slave mentality of the last 1000-1200 years’ (he interprets the
transition to Islamic rulers in the second millennia as un-Indian), his
exhortations to ‘send packing’ illegal Bangladeshi Muslims, and
revisionist histories in textbooks being supported by the new ministry,
the BJP (Bharatiya Janta Party) has made it clear that it operates
within an essentialist Hindu scope.
Skeptics have even viewed Modi’s reputation of being anti-Muslim as
having been an electoral advantage. Indeed, a ‘Modi wave’ swept across
central and western India. It is however, important to point out that 69
per cent of Indian voters
did not vote for Modi. As startling
as that sounds, it was often the arithmetic of the first-past-the-post
system and not an actual majority vote that led the BJP to their
landslide victory of 282 out of 545 seats. An instrumental combination
of religious fervor taking hold in electorally strategic states (which
had a higher number of seats) was key to a BJP win.
Second, while India certainly has no dearth of renowned scientists,
artists, and academics, and has made remarkable leaps in technology, it
may surprise many that Indonesia is significantly ahead of India in
basic adult literacy.
It is estimated to be 93 per cent for Indonesia and still only about 74 per cent for India.
This achievement is actually in large part due to education policies
implemented during the long Suharto years. Some benefits of that
incremental advancement were reaped only recently as Indonesia went from
autocratic to democratic rule. In functional democracies with a robust
literate population, candidates have a better shot at convincing voters
of the merits of a self-determined future.
Jokowi reached out to his followers by persuading them that he was creating a political movement where
their participation
would matter. It worked. A significant number of Indonesians with basic
literacy, the group that probably had the most to gain from a new
awakening in the government, voted for him. In India, after a decade of
weak leadership by the Congress Party, many of Modi’s supporters were
persuaded not by the lure of democracy and civic participation but by
entrusting their future in what was billed as a heavy-handed ‘big
brother’ type leadership.
Unsurprisingly, despite its rising popularity elsewhere in the
country in 2014, the BJP was unable to make dents in three large
southern states with high literacy rates – Andhra Pradesh, Kerela and
Tamil Nadu (average literacy 90 per cent) – while it swept Rajasthan,
Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the ‘Hindi heartland’
(average literacy 69 per cent).
Finally, the persistence of arcane dynastic rule was a deal-breaker
for India’s democratic aspirations. In the aftermath of the Congress
Party’s walloping at the voting booths (securing only 42 seats or barely
eight per cent of the total), Shashi Tharoor, possibly one of the most
educated, self-achieving politicians ‘modern’ India has produced – a
former UN Secretary-General contender no less— vehemently insisted in an
interview that nominating Nehru progeny was ‘not in contradiction’ with
the ideals of a modern political party.
‘But this is modern India! What about meritocracy?’ high-decibel
television host Rajdeep Sardesai had yelled in exasperation. Indeed, it
has taken an absurd degree of insularity and arrogance, ills common to
long-running, quasi-feudalistic styled governance, for the Congress
Party (and by extension the coalition UPA) not to admit that Nehru scion
Rahul Gandhi was hardly a challenge to Narendra Modi. Yet, an alternate
candidate in a populous nation with many capable politicians was never
seriously considered.
While Indonesia does have its share of family backed politics, it is
somewhat in check. Megawati didn’t ride for free on her father’s legacy
and Titiek is Suharto’s only offspring who successfully ran for
Legislative Council, winning her seat this year. This defeat of New
Order hardliner Prabowo, a man with deep pockets, a billionaire brother,
and decades-old family connections (he was a Suharto son-in-law) is
case in point.
When a secular, former furniture salesman of modest means wins the
popular vote over a wealthy ex-army general, especially in Southeast
Asia, it is a watershed moment in that nation’s democratic journey. In
India, the persistence of non-meritocratic dynastic ambitions, a
faltering economy, resurgence of religious sectarianism, a weakened
minority, an under-educated populous, and conducive electoral arithmetic
– all of these created conditions favorable for a takeover by someone
with Modi’s far right-wing credentials.
Is India in peril with Modi in office?
University of Chicago political scientists Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph
have long argued that right-wing forces like the BJP tend to become more
centrist when in power. Modi certainly realises that to ensure a second
term victory he will need to improve on his rather low 31 per cent
voter success and that that support will have to come from outside his
current base.
Many are hoping that Modi’s incendiary positions were merely election
time chest-thumping and that he will veer towards sensible rule. The
stock market is up five per cent since he took office in May, and the US
and the UK have lifted their visa bans on him.
Outspoken anti-Modi intellectuals like filmmaker Anand Patwardan,
economist Amartya Sen and author Arundhati Roy however, continue to
express their grave concern that insidious change will gradually envelop
the country. They contend that India will increasingly position itself
as a nation eager to give industrialists and big-capital a leg-up in a
manner that will keep widening the already harrowing gap between the
haves and have-nots, while infiltrating the nation-wide judiciary with a
pro-
Hindutva bias that puts minorities in peril.
Indonesia will need a lot more than an affable, ‘people’s man’ to
steer it to a robust democracy. Despite Jokowi’s strong track record as
Governor of Jakarta, and his perhaps idealistic intentions, the calculus
of coalitions dictate that the power-sharing terrain will remain rife
with concessions. His recent plan of outsourcing his cabinet nominations
to public opinion polls was more stunt than practicality and has drawn
heavy criticism.
Indonesia is currently besieged with financial problems – elevated
fuel subsidies and a steep drop in price for many of its basic exports.
Unlike Modi who faces limited opposition, Jowkowi has opponents with
strong financial influence and ties to old military-styled cronyism
waiting to call out on incompetence.
Jokowi has one key asset at the moment however – tremendous adulation
from his supporters, reminiscent of independence-era Sukarno. But
unlike the charismatic first President of Indonesia, who steered the
country with a wayward personal style of governance he labeled ‘guided
democracy’, Jokowi seems to be determined to let democracy guide him.
Sandeep Ray is a filmmaker and a doctoral candidate in history at the National University of Singapore. His article originally appeared 8 August in New Mandala.
