Revisiting the soft state

Growing left-wing extremism is not a good augury for India’s  growth prospects

N Chandra Mohan

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s relatively weak response to the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai -- following the grenade blasts in Srinagar – on 7/11 has triggered the charge that it is soft on cross-border terrorism. Not so long thereafter, left-wing extremists killed 26 tribals in the state of Chhattisgarh, besides raiding a police camp in Errabore, 500 kms from Raipur, again, without any challenge from the Indian state. With all of this fresh in his mind, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told chief secretaries that the state’s response has been “inadequate”; that they should be better prepared to meet terror threats in the future.

Matters are no different on the economic front either, with the UPA government’s softness on economic reforms, which are necessary to sustain the ongoing robust growth momentum of the Indian economy. A case in point is its recent decision to freeze all proposals to offload a part of the government’s equity holding in profitable public sector undertakings (PSUs) like National Aluminium and Neyveli Lignite Corporation, following intense opposition by its coalition allies like DMK and the Left. In this milieu, other reforms like opening up retail trade to foreigners and pensions face a similar fate

Doesn’t this track-record warrant revisiting Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal’s concept of the soft state in his monumental work, Asian Drama? True, he referred to the bygone world of democratic planning of the 1950s and 1960s, whereas India’s liberal economic regime now relies more on market forces rather than dirigisme. But then as now, there is, no doubt, a growing dichotomy between ideals and reality, between pronouncing or even legislating reforms and not implementing them. According to Myrdal, such behaviour breeds cynicism and contempt, and makes subsequent reforms more difficult.

According to Myrdal, the Indian state was soft as it had no determination or courage to change prevailing attitudes and institutions that stood in the way of reform and development. As a result, it couldn’t frontally attack, for instance, the institution of caste or take “measures that would increase mobility and equality, such as effective land reform and tenancy legislation”. Other examples include its inability to eradicate corruption at all levels; enforce tax laws; effectively tax income from land and in general, enact and enforce all other obligations on people required for development.  

One direct consequence of this softness has been the tremendous growth of left-wing extremism in recent years, which Manmohan Singh called the “gravest internal threat” to the country’s security. Thanks to the soft state that is fast becoming a failing one, the spectre of left-wing extremism or Naxalism casts its shadow over 150 districts in the country, affecting nearly 40 per cent of India’s geographical area and 35 per cent of its population. Scarcely a day passes without stories on “Red Alert: Bailadila mine workers face Naxal threat” or “Code Red: Naxals” or the more recent Chhattisgarh incident.